Burnt Out Fire
by SethFurnace
Summary: Seth Slade, sixteen years old, is forced to compete in the 116th Hunger Games.
1. Chapter 1

I'm Seth Slade. I live in Panem. I'm sixteen.  
I guess I should start by saying the second rebellion didn't work out for the rebels. The capital won again. Everything went back to normal after a while. So we were back having Hunger Games. Back to the starvation that some district's faced while other district's were fine. I came from District Seven. Which if you don't know is The Lumber District. It was the morning of the reaping. The day where one boy and one girl 18 or under gets chosen to be sent into a death arena, filled with all sorts of twists and turns where 23 kids must die with there only being one winner. Bad chances for anyone really. So far my family had only had one of my siblings get sent to the games, with five of us the chances couldn't have been that good about having no one sent into the Hunger Games, so when Luca was picked three years ago, it wasn't that surprising.

Of course we all hoped that he would make it, but unfortunately he didn't. He was killed the day before the games ended with a victor from District 4. Someone named Josh Woodlee had killed my brother and then won the games. I still had nightmares about Luca's death. And I figured that that would never change. I also doubted that I'd ever forget the name Josh Woodlee.

I finally got out of my bed and walked out of the bedroom. I walked downstairs and found my three living siblings and my parents sitting at the kitchen table. I took a seat between Adam and Leah and looked around at all of their faces. I knew what reaping day meant for my parents, it was the day they lost their oldest child, the last day they saw him alive in person three years ago. It was a sad reminder every year. A sad period of time every year where we all remembered Luca a lot more than usual, not that we usually didn't remember him every day. But still it was always harder around the time of the year where the Hunger Games was.

The rest of the morning went on as every reaping morning went. I went back upstairs after breakfast and took a quick shower before getting into the best outfit I had for the reaping. Most of the clothes I had were hand-me-down's from my three older brothers. After that I headed down to the town square where the reapings always were. I would stand with my age group, sixteen year olds, and wait to hear if my name or any of my siblings names were called. I would hope and pray that they weren't, and if they were, I didn't know what I would do at that point besides hope that best came out of that situation and my sibling won the Hunger Games.

I walked into the town square only to have my blood tested and my name wrote down on a piece of paper. I was directed to where my age group was standing and I fell in line with a couple of my friends, Abraham and Jack. They all looked about as nervous as I felt, I figured everyone probably felt the same way. My brother Jacob was safe from reaping, which left Leah, Adam, and I in the reaping. Leah was 18, so it was the last time she'd be in the reaping's. I, unfortunately, had two more years to go. Adam only had one year left after this year. After everyone else had filed into the square, the mayor said some speech and introduced the victors that were alive from District 7. Then the escort from District 7 walked onto the stage.

"Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor!" She called out, looking about as excited as I could imagine a person looking. "First we're going to draw the girl tributes name." She fished around in the bowl of girl's from District 7's names' before pulling out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and looked at it before looking back at the microphone and the crowd. "Leah Slade."

I'm pretty sure I looked about as shocked as a person could look at the name that was called out. My sister was going into the Hunger Games. I looked around watching as my sister walked up to the stage. My family could possibly lose another family member due to the Hunger Games. I looked down at the ground.

"Now time to find out who will be our boy tribute!" The Escort of District 7, Izzie, called into the microphone. She fished around for a name and pulled out a piece of paper. "Seth Slade! Two Slades! Oh my gosh!"

I snapped my head up. I was going into the Hunger Games? What in the world? I was going to have to go against my sister knowing that if we're lucky only one of us will be alive at the end of the games. I slowly walked up to the stage. Once I had gotten onto the stage, I looked at my sister before looking out at the crowd. Not one single person had volunteered to take our places. Not even my older brother who could be reaped. He didn't save me at all.

We were escorted off the stage and into the justice building. My parents, Adam, and Jacob all came into the room I was sat in to tell me their goodbyes. My two closest friends Abraham and Jack walked in to tell me goodbye too and to wish me good luck. I sat there for the rest of the time until two peacekeepers walked in

"Time to go to the train." One of them stated. They each took hold of one of my arms and led me to the train station. A ton of people from District 7 were standing there watching. I boarded the train at the same time that Leah did. We were both more than likely going to our death place and there was nothing either of us could do about it. After the train took off, I hugged Leah. The escort from District 7 and some of the victors walked up.

"Time for dinner!" The escort happily called out. "And then we'll watch the other districts' reapings! How exciting for you two to be siblings and going into the same games as each other!"

I did a double take. How was me and my sister going into the same games exciting? That was just cruel. Not exciting at all. We went into the dining cab and sat down. They placed a ton of food onto the table and I slowly started eating some of it.

After dinner was done, we were escorted to a room with a couch and a TV. I wasn't sure about watching who else had been chosen, but I wanted to see who my sister and I would be up against. We all sat down and Izzie turned on the TV. District 1's tributes both volunteered themselves. They both had blonde hair and looked to be threats, but they could easily be killed, anyone could. District 2 had the male tribute having volunteered himself and the female tribute being picked. Surprisingly, no one volunteered to take her spot. District 3 had two siblings as well, and they were both reaped not volunteer's. District 4 had a girl reaped and then a name which sounded so familiar as the male tribute who had volunteered himself. Trey Woodlee. I instantly recognized him as somehow related to Josh Woodlee and I finally made the connection that they were brothers.

I was going to be facing the younger brother of the guy who killed my oldest brother.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day that it took to get the capitol was filled with me hanging out with Leah and trying to pretend that we weren't heading to the Hunger Games. It was hard to imagine that in less than two weeks, I would be placed in an arena where it was kill 23 people or die myself. I didn't know what I wanted to do, all I knew is that I was more than likely screwed. I was rewatching the reapings for the fifth time on my trip to the capitol trying to take notes of how all of the tributes acted. Of course the tributes from 1, 2, and 4 acted the toughest, but there was a few others that stuck out. Like the boy tribute from District 11, he was a taller guy who was more muscular than some of the other district tributes. I heard an entrance into the living room with me and I looked back to find Izzie, our district's escort.

"We're pulling into the capitol in a few minutes. I thought you and your sister might want to see the city, it is such a sight." She explained. I nodded and stood up off of the couch, pushing my way past her and out of the room. I went into the dining cab and looked out the window. Leah walked up and looked out the window next to mine. We watched as we entered the capitol. There was a ton of capitol citizens out in the streets watching as our train entered the city. I slowly raised my hand to the glass of the window and smiled out at the crowds, figuring that that might win me and my sister a few sponsers to help us out in the arena. I knew that most likely everyone would be betting for Districts 1, 2, and 4, the typical career tributes, but anything I could do to help my sister and I out in the long-run I'd do. A few people in the crowd of citizens seem to be loving the show that we apparently give them while reading our death train into the capitol. I look over at one point and see that my sister isn't giving them any sort of attention really, more looking at the buildings in the city than paying any attention to the people who could make a difference in our life or death. I played to the crowd of people outside the train for a few more seconds before we disappeared into a huge tunnel that blocked out every single bit of light.

I realized that we must be close to the train station in the capitol and walked back from the windows. We were escorted off the train and into a building, I figured that that would be where we stayed for our time in training. I was surprised at how all of the place looked, our mentor and our escort led us to the seventh floor of the building. The place looked a lot more royal, I guess is the word, than I would have expected.

I had spent many nights on the train awake, thinking of how I'd try to protect my sister, and whether or not my sister would be trying to protect me to send me back while I was trying to do the same thing for her. Which would of us would win? Would both of us die? Questions that acted as bee's in my head every night. I doubted that I'd be able to avoid sleep in the capitol though. I wondered if Leah had spent nights awake wondering what she'd do once the games started.

The fans for the games were lined around the buildings and the train station. It was slightly amazing to see, but I had to remind myself that I had to remind myself that they were just excited to see if I'd live or not, they didn't care about me. They just wanted a show. And a show is what I was planning on giving them, whether it'd be to save my sisters life, or to save mine. That'd all be decided in the arena, and in the arena I was planning on giving them one of the biggest shows they had seen. There were servant's here to take me to my bedroom for while I was in the capitol. Leah had a room down the hall from me. I stood in my room and looked around, nodding as I did so. No doubt, I'd sleep here. The room was extravagant. I'd have no choice but to sleep in this place. Plus, the training center would make me need rest. I also needed to be prepared and ready for my interview with Caeser Flickerman. Must have been nice, living here in the Capitol, without a worry in the world. Getting to sleep on beds like these every night of your life, with no worries that you or your future kids or any of your family could be taken in the reapings. Must of been amazing to just view the games as just that, a game. A show to entertain you, not someones children getting killed for your entertainment. I hated the Capitol citizens, but I also envied them. It must be nice to just not worry and think that these were just games.

I heard a knock on my bedroom door and looked over at it. "Yeah, come on in." I said quietly. Leah slipped in through the door and offered me a smile.

"Nice room. How're you holding up?" Leah asked, looking around the room. I shrugged, not willing to give an answer to how I was doing. I didn't even know how I was holding up myself. Leah nodded. Thats when our District's victor walked into the room. I recognized him as Rector Jackson.

Rector had won the 110th Hunger Games, he had only been mentoring for six years, but he was probably one of the best mentors District Seven had. He had won his games by beheading most of his competition, the rest of the competition managed to find a way to die on their own. It had came down to him and a tribute from District 1. He had ended up sinking an axe into the guy's back and then beheading him. Rector was probably District seven's biggest and most deserving victor, to be perfectly honest. Nothing against the other victor's, of course.

"You guys ready for some Capitol dinner? Tomorrows the opening ceremonies. You'll also be in preping all of tomorrow, don't get overwhelmed. We need to show some District pride." Rector stated, looking between us both. He nodded to himself and then walked out of the room. I looked over at Leah.

"Which one of us do you think he thinks has a chance of winning?" I asked, grinning at her as I walked toward the door.

"Probably you. You're more likable than I am, kid." Leah said laughing and pushing her way past me out the door. I let out a laugh and walked out the door and down the hall. When we got to the dining room, Izzie and Rector were already sitting there. There was a couple other victors sitting there, along with the prep teams. The prep teams and the other victor's introduced themselves. The other victors were Justin, Kyle, Whitney, and Ashton. My prep team was Natten, Paulio, Daniel, and Chynthia. Leah's prep team was Jaxon, Yenji, Saxton, and Erin. Leah and I both sat down at the table and servants brought in the meal. There was a ton of Capitol food, so much that it would have been easy to get caught up in just eating everything that the servants brought, of course that would have been if I wasn't getting prepared to go into a death arena. With that though looming over my head, it was hard to focus on just eating, to act like I wasn't going to have to face the thought that my own sister might be murdered. The thought followed me all the way back to my bedroom later that night.

It also followed me into my dreams, which were more like nightmares. Which I suppose would be normal in my case, being in the Capitol only to either be murdered or murder 23 other kids.


	3. Chapter 3

I was running through a jungle somewhere. I must have seen this scene in a Hunger Games before this year. I had a sword in one hand and a flashlight in the other. I didn't know where I was going, in fact I was very lost. I just knew I had to keep running, from what I don't know. But my plan was to keep running, I knew that I was in big trouble. Horrible trouble. If only I knew what that trouble was. I rounded the corner of a tree, and tripped over a weed in the ground. My ankle twisted and I kept rolling down a hill. I suppose it was just luck that I didn't stab myself in the process of rolling. I heard two pairs of footsteps running down the hill after me.

"There he is!" A voice screamed. I slowly opened my eyes to see Trey Woodlee and... my sister running down the hill with weapons in their hands. I let out a moan and tried to roll over. Once I managed to stand up, I grabbed my sword. Trey and Leah were right on me at this point though. I took a couple steps and ended up just tripping again.

Trey stepped on my chest and held his spear against my neck. I was going to be killed by the younger brother of the guy who killed my oldest brother and my own sister. I felt a hot pain in my chest and looked down to see a knife burried deep into my side. I let out a howl, even if I couldn't save myself, maybe I could get Trey and Leah found by other tributes. Thats when I felt Treys spear go into my neck. This wasn't a quick black-out death either, I felt every single second of pain that that Spear gave me.

When I finally woke up, I was covered in sweat. I slipped out of my bed and headed to my capitol bedroom's bathroom. I changed into a new non-sweat-covered pair of clothes and looked around. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. That would be impossible. So instead, I headed out of my room and looked around. I spotted a servant and walked up to him.

"Hey, is there anything to do around here? I can't sleep. Which I know is a stupid decision, but..." I trailed off looking at his shocked expression. I guess the tributes tended to not speak to the servants.

"Oh yes, of course there is, sir. The gardens up on the 12th floor are somewhat of a favorite spot for young tributes such as yourself. Please, enjoy the gardens for your time here."

I nodded and went over to an elevator. I stepped instead of it and pushed the 12 button. The elevator shot upward and soon, I was standing on the 12th floor. The floor for the tributes from District 12, usually. But I guess it wasn't against the rules for another District's tribute to visit the gardens. If I got caught, I'd just tell them that a servant told me it was fine. I headed down the main hallway and saw a door at the end of it. I pushed the door open as soon as I neared it and walked outside into the small garden. There was all sorts of plants, even a few birds. I rounded a corner and spotted a sort of tank holding water and different sorts of fish. There was another guy standing beside the tank. I wouldn't of recognized him if he didn't turn around. When he did, it was like I was staring into the face of my brothers murderer. Except if he was younger. Trey Woodlee was outside in the garden with me.

"I can come back later, if you'd rather have the garden to yourself. I've been out here a while." Trey stated, shrugging and picking an apple up off of the railing. I shook my head, figuring that the garden was big enough for two people. Even if the two people were going to end up in an arena together trying to kill each other.

"Feel free to stay." I stated, looking around. Trey tossed the apple out into the sky only to have it bounce back into his hand.

"It's a force field. My brother told me about them. I've been out here pretty much playing catch all night, when I wasn't looking at the fish and small shark, of course." Trey said, looking over at me before tossing the apple back out into the sky.

"Sounds like a great warm up for the arena." I said, walking away.

"I hate talking about the arena. I mean, I know I'm going there. I even kind of want to. But why waste time talking about it? Especially when you're going to have to face me in there." Trey called out.

I looked back just in time to see him send the apple flying out into the air with about as much force as it seemed he could do. The apple bounced off of the force field and began to fly toward me. I raised my hand up just in time to catch it. I looked over to find a smirk on Treys face.

"Nice catch. So, want to act like you want no sort of companion while you're out here, due to the games, or want to have a nice old fashion game of catch? It's apparently illegal for us to communicate, let alone play a game together, but who cares? We're going off to death right?" Trey said laughing and looking around. "Not like the fish in this tank care that they're in the same tank as something that might eat them."

I nodded and tossed the apple into the force field, it luckily hit it at such an angle that it flew towards Trey. It turned out to be sort of fun being around another person and playing catch. It was almost as if it was like my days as a younger kid, spent playing with my closest friends and running around District 7, just looking to get into trouble. After what was probably a few hours, we stopped playing catch and just turned toward doing our own things. I watched the fish and the shark for a while, Trey started making knots into a vine that he had gotten from one of the plants. It took me a second to figure out why his knots were so professional, then I remembered, District 4 fishing District. He'd have been making nets and knots in ropes all of his life probably. Which definitely made him competition in the arena. I turned my attention from the fish tank to watching his knots. After a few seconds of being watched, he looked up at me.

"Want to learn some knot tying?" He asked, looking around.

"Sure," I replied, moving to sit down next to him. I grabbed myself a vine and tried to match up my knots with Treys as much as possible. Which ended up being a failure in the end, since his knots were much more polished than mine, but I guess that's expected from a guy who has spent his entire life creating nets compared to someone who just started that night. I don't even know how long we sat there tying and untying knots in the vines we had. It was something to do though.

"Your knots are pretty good for a beginner." Trey stated, looking at the knots I had gotten into the vine I had grabbed. I shrugged.

"I guess I'm better with an ax." I said, smirking to myself. Trey nodded and looked around. I did the same, and for the first time during the night, I noticed just how much time had passed. The sun was coming up. I stood up and so did Trey. We both raced inside of the training center and went into the elevator. I got off of the elevator at level 7, while Trey continued down to 4. I walked into the dining room to find Leah, Rector, Izzie, and the rest of our teams sitting there already.

"'Bout time you made it, kid." Justin said, glaring up from his plate at me. I could already tell that that was one victor who wasn't going to like me much.

"Sorry, I was up at the garden all night. Couldn't sleep." I mumbled, sitting down in a seat next to Leah. Izzie told us all our things to do for the day. Which mainly included preparing for the opening ceremonies and then actually showing up for them. After breakfast, I was led off to a completely different room by myself. Where Paulio, Chynthia, and Daniel went to work on mainly my hair as well as my teeth. After a couple hours, my halfway long hair had been trimmed short and I had a perfectly white smile. I was led into another room where Natten was sitting there.

"So, are you ready to see your Lumber outfit?" Natten asked, smiling fondly at me. I shrugged.

"Won't it just be a tree?" I asked. That seemed to be what all of the tributes of past years had been dressed in.

"No. We're dressing you like an ax. Gold, bronze. Everything that an ax is." Natten replied, looking around.

Somehow within hours, I was dressed in an outfit that somewhat resembled an ax, I guess, if you had an artist eye. If you didn't, like I didn't, you'd just think I was dressed in gold and bronze. I was also seated in a chariot with Leah. I took a glance around the rest of the room and saw that the tributes from District 4, Trey and what was the girl tributes name? Hope, that was the name, were dressed in fishing nets. District's 1 and 2 halfway looked like they were in war armor. District 3 was in a light sort of outfit. Some of the rest of the outfits just fit to what the District's trade was. Like District 12 appeared to be covered in coal dust. It seemed as if all of the tributes were in silence, waiting for the ceremony to start. Izzie, our stylists, and Rector were all standing around our chariot talking all at once. They wanted us to try to play to the crowd as much as possible, but still appear as a team to be reckoned with. I saw the siblings from District 3 arguing already in their chariot, probably about what sort of strategy to go with. I didn't pay much attention to anyone else in the room, not even Leah. I was going over what I wanted to act like in my head. After I had figured out that the crowd would probably like to have a nicer Slade out there, since it was unlikely that Leah was going to act nice to the crowd at all, I looked around the room. Sitting in chariots around me were 22 people I definitely had to kill. Then in the chariot with me was one person who would be impossible to kill due to being related. I tried to pay more attention to the outfits that they had us all in for the ceremonies instead of the fact that I'd have to kill some of these people around me. It appeared that every stylist went for a different approach to how to dress their tributes. It even looked like District 4's stylists went for a different approach even though they were working together. Trey Woodlee's net was showing a lot more of him than his District partners was. Which I guess was expected, but it was still interesting to see such a difference in one District's outfits.

A while passed and then finally the doors opened and the chariots started going out, one by one. There seemed to be more noise from the crowd as each chariot left the room. Once our chariot left the room, I looked around and tried to smile as good as I possibly could. There seemed to be a ton of people at the opening ceremonies, which if I recalled correctly, always happened. It just seemed like a ton more people in person than it ever did on TV. We rode around the Capitol town square for what seemed like hours, before coming to a stop in the seventh spot with the rest of the chariots. President Gaben walked out onto the balcony above the square. I remembered that President Gaben was President Snow's grandson. President Snow had been president back when the second rebellion had happened, and for all I knew he had even been president when the first rebellion happened. They didn't teach us much about how old President Snow or President Gaben were, they just taught us the importance of the president to Panem. President Gaben went through a long speech that seemed to last for about as long as the whole parade did. I attempted to pay attention, but it seemed to be hard to pay attention to the President when I was sitting in a Chariot around millions of Capitol Citizens. After the President's speech ended, our chariots went into the training center building again. It seemed like all of the tributes got out of their chariots at once. Izzie and Rector were standing there waiting for Leah and I. Izzie was telling us how well we looked in the chariot when I zoned out and just turned to looking around the training center room. I looked back at Rector and Izzie at the same time that apparently Izzie's speech had ended. They led us up to the seventh floor and I headed on to my training center room since I knew that the next morning would bring the training for the games.


	4. Chapter 4

When I woke up the next morning for training, I sat on my bed for a few seconds wondering how exactly training would go. I knew that it was just learning how to use different weapons and how to survive, anyone could figure that out. But what I was really unsure of was who would make the career pack this year. It was always decided by District's 1, 2, and 4 who else would be in the career pack. They usually decided by the end of training and requested for the other people to be put in their alliance. I thought through the tributes names that I could remember, I knew who would be in the group automatically. Trey Woodlee, Randy Rope, and Mathias Xinlim. The male tributes from 4, 2, and 1. They were all definitely in. The rest of the tributes were a mystery. There may only be 3 tributes in the career pack this year. Or 6, if all of the female tributes from 1, 2, and 4 were worth it in the eyes of the male tributes from those District's.

I finally got out of my bed and got dressed in the training outfit that Izzie had left in my room. I walked out the door to the hallway and walked toward the dining room. Everyone else was already there. I sat down in my usual seat and looked around the table. Rector nodded at me, and Izzie smiled. The other victors were much more reserved and didn't seem to necessarily care whether we lived or not. The breakfast was silent until Rector decided to give us any sort of advice for the training.

"Rules. 1. Don't get into a fight. 2. Make friends." Rector stated, giving a shrug as if it was the most obvious things in the world. I nodded and looked over at Leah. Izzie stood up from the table and looked at us both.

"If you two are done eating, we can go on down to the training center." Izzie said. I nodded and stood up, Leah did the same. Izzie led us to the elevator and we all got in. Izzie pushed the button for the training center and after a second we were all heading downward. Once the elevator came to a stop, we all got out of the elevator. Izzie led us to the door of the training center and looked at us both.

"You both will do just fine." She said, looking back at the other elevator. It opened to reveal the District 4 tributes. The female tribute from 4 walked on in the training center. Trey walked by and nodded in my direction before walking into the training center. Izzie finally finished looking at us and making sure we were reading for training and let us walk into the training center. I looked up to a balcony where the gamemakers all sit, watching the tributes. There were peacekeepers scattered around the room, as well as trainers. After a few minutes, all of the tributes were there. And the main instructor began giving us all a speech about what not to do during training. After the speech was over, I split off from Leah. Deciding that maybe if we covered more ground, it'd be better. I ended up at a spear throwing station, and was after a few seconds joined by Trey Woodlee.

"The babysitter over there... your sister right?" Trey asked, moving his head in a direction. I looked and saw Leah watching me. I let out a sigh and nodded.

"My sister." I explained. Trey nodded.

"My brother, Josh, gave me a twenty minute speech after breakfast about what to do and what not to do in training." Trey explained, throwing a spear directly into the chest of one of the dummies. "I was hoping I'd get the chance to talk to you during training today."

"What about?" I asked tossing the spear I was holding at a dummy. When it hit the dummy, Trey nodded.

"Just wanted to know that I had someone other than the rest of the careers to hang out with during training, and hell maybe if we both make it past the rest of the careers, we can team up in the arena. Having allies is better than not." Trey stated, shrugging. I was about to answer when a taller blonde guy walked up and looked at Trey.

"Seen anyone interesting?" He asked, loudly enough that I'm sure half of the room heard.

"Randy... I've had my eye on a few people, seem good with knives and spears. Might be what we need." Trey replied.

"Maybe. I'll keep watch on everyone. You just... practice. I'm going to need any backup I can get to win." Randy said, walking off to the knife station. Trey looked at me and nodded before walking off to a station that taught us tributes about what we can eat in the arenas and what we can't. I spent the rest of training before lunch mainly watching the other tributes. What would the careers be looking for? The question kept repeating itself in my mind. Trey was already a definite in for the careers, that much was obvious from the way he talked and the way Randy had talked to him. At one point before we broke for lunch, I saw Trey speaking to Randy and another blonde guy who must've been from District 1. They were probably the first three decided members of the careers. They all were probably already in the group before they even got to the Capitol. It was just decided that way, I guess.  
When we broke from lunch, I was walking in the hallway toward the lunchroom that the peacekeepers were leading us all to when I heard someone running up beside me. I looked beside me to see Trey standing beside me.

"Hey." I said, looking behind us to see the rest of the careers that had grouped together within the last few minutes of training. There were six in total so far. District's 1, 2, and 4.

"Hey. Want to eat with us all? I told the guys about your spear skills. They said they could give you a chance at getting into the group after lunch. You'll just show off to them, of course there is no official group until the arena and the scores, but yeah." Trey said quickly, smiling at me. I shrugged and then nodded. Why not sit with the careers? They could probably help me get by the games, if I grouped with them.

We walked into the room and everyone grabbed a tray. There were carts around the room with food on each. Everyone got their food and then sat down at a table that suited them. I looked around the room and saw Trey and the rest of the careers at a table. I walked over toward their table and sat down with them. Trey smirked at me and then looked around at the rest of the group.

"Seth Slade. Mathias Xinlim, Dianna Weston, Randy Rope, Kyler Ashfield, and Hope Countell. And of course me." Trey said pointing to everyone as he said their name. I nodded at everyone.

"Spears huh?" Randy asked, looking at me while he took a bite of his food. I nodded.

"Yep, spears. Of course I can use other weapons too. Just been working with spears today." I said, shrugging. Randy nodded. After that, all of the conversations seemed to be based on stuff with our District's and not with the games, which I was thankful for. I noticed that on each different table there was a basket of bread rolls. I pulled out a couple different pieces. Mathias Xinlim noticed me doing this and grabbed the rest of the different types of bread out and put them all in a line with the two pieces I had grabbed.

"Different types of bread from all the District's." He stated, nodding down at the line. I suspected that he had placed them all in the correct order of the District's, starting with one and ending with twelve. I grabbed the pieces I figured were District 3 and 4's bread. I took a bite of the District 4 bread. It was salty and had a weird taste to it, but it wasn't necessarily bad. Just different from the plain usual bread I was use to in District 7. I tried a bite of the District 3 bread next, it was definitely still different but closer to the District 7 bread that I was use to. I looked around the lunch room, with everyone either eating or in conversations everyone looked more like their actual ages. I saw one girl who couldn't be more than 13 years old sitting by herself. I recognized her as the tribute from District 11. I looked around the room and found my sister sitting with the other tribute from 11 and the tributes from 12. They all looked to be in some conversation that looked like it could have been about the games but could have been about anything really. There was no telling what all conversations went on at each table.

After lunch we went back to the training room and started off where we left. I threw some spears in front of the career group and I honestly couldn't tell if they were impressed or not. I knew that Randy, who seemed to be taking the leader spot of the careers didn't seem that impressed, but the others had looks on their faces that I couldn't read. After my spear throwing exhibit, I joined the tributes from District 3, 11, and 12 at the obstacle course section of the training room. We all seemed to take different approaches to running up the course and it seemed to work best for the girl from 11. She was the smallest out of us all and seemed to have no issue dodging stuff. I knew that she'd make it far in the games as far as dodging stuff went. I didn't know how she'd do when it came to fighting, but she could hide and dodge stuff. That had to be a good start. After training, I was exhausted and figured I was going to go to bed right after dinner, if I was allowed to. Dinner with the prep teams, the victors, Izzie, and Leah was silent and thankfully no one asked how training went for either of us. I didn't want to explain how or why I ended up eating with the career pack, or try to explain how my spear throwing exhibit went for the careers. I didn't want to know if I made it into their group yet or not. After dinner, I took a shower and then headed onto my bed. The next two days of training went the same. Train. Eat Lunch. Train again. Dinner. Shower. Sleep. Wake up. Do it all again. I did everything training. I tried to stick with the tributes from 11, but sometimes that was impossible. I didn't eat with the careers again. Trey didn't speak to me during training again. I figured that I hadn't made it into the career pack. I had taken the time to learn all of the tributes names so that I could know who was who.

On the last day of training, during lunch right before the private sessions of training. I was eating with the girl from 11 and both of the tributes from 12 when I looked over to the career pack table. I figured that they had probably already chosen the members of their group. At the table I found both tributes from District 1, both from 2, John Palin from 3, both from 4, West Jadson from 11, and then my sister. Had Leah made it into the career pack? I hadn't even thought to think of that possibility. For the last day we had been practicing tatic's with our mentors for the interviews. We hadn't trained together for the interviews, but I had figured that that was usual. We also hadn't talked much, but was I suppose to instantly think that my sister had gone and joined the careers? I knew that if she was in the career pack that wouldn't mean anything. That wouldn't mean that I was safe. I would die just like 22 other people. Leaving one person living, the victor of the 116th games. Just like every other Hunger Games. This wouldn't be any exception. Just because I had a family member in the career pack didn't mean I was going to live. What would my parent's think of this? What if the career pack was who would kill me? If Leah won, would my family accept her back into their family if she had condemned me to death? After lunch ended, one by one starting with the male tribute from District 1, we were called to our private session. After the rest of the career pack, except for West Jadson, had been called to their private session and then excused to their floors, Leah walked over to my table that I was still sharing with Rakayah Danielson, David Franklin, and Natalie Radison.

"Mind leaving?" Leah snapped at the three people who had practically became as close to friends as anyone could have in the training center. One by one they all got up and moved to a table nearby. Leah sat down in the seat across the table from me.

"What do you want?" I asked, looking at her and then looking at the table that David, Rakayah, and Natalie had moved to.

"Such a nice way to treat your sister." Leah said, smirking at me.

"Well, how should I treat you then?!" I asked loudly. "You've joined them! I'm going to die and you won't give a damn because you'll have a better chance at winning! That's not even how a sister should act, Leah!"

I stood up and walked over to a table in the corner completely across the room. I was thankful when I didn't hear any footsteps following me. At least my sister had that much respect for me to leave me alone at this point. Why start acting like she cared about me now? Never really did before. Not even before the reapings. Sure, we got along, but not the way that me and Adam did or Leah and Jacob did. Adam and I acted like real siblings did toward each other. Leah and Jacob always expected more from me. No matter what I did, they expected better from me. And I was tired of being treated like the little baby sibling who couldn't do anything. What better way to show that I could take care of myself than in the games? The tributes from 5 and 6 were called. Then I was called. I exited the room, only quietly telling Rak, David, and Natalie goodbye. Walking beside a peacekeeper to the training center room was interesting, it was silent, and I felt as if the peacekeeper expected me to attempt to run. I mean, really, where would I hide in the training center? It'd be impossible. I'd rather face my fate in the arena than attempt to run in the training center. I'd never know where to go, or how to make it. When we got into the training center, I walked toward a spear that was sitting against the wall.

"You may begin, District 7 Male Tribute." Shouted the head gamemaker's voice. I nodded to myself and lifted up the spear. Turning around, I let the spear fly through the air toward a dummy, when it struck it in it's chest I let a grin spread across my face. I was worried most about the first spear throw. At least I had gotten the first throw out of the way. I walked across the room and pulled the spear of the dummy. I took a couple steps backwards and quickly spun around hitting the dummy in the side with the spear. I left the spear there and walked over and grabbed a sword. For the rest of the training session, I went from stabbing dummies with swords and flinging spears at dummys.

"You're excused, District 7." The head gamemaker shouted out toward me after I had stopped. I bowed and walked out of the room.

Riding in the elevator back up to Floor 7, I felt as if I had messed up. I don't know why, but I felt as if I had annoyed someone or let someone down. I didn't like the feeling, but when did I ever. Back at home, I had always taken things too far, which ended up in me feeling the exact same way. I knew that thinking about home and feeling this way wouldn't lead to a good games. No one who spent time worrying about people lasted long in the games. I had my plan. Starting tomorrow at the interviews, I would be me. I wouldn't care about other people. If I was asked about my sister, I would say something usual. But I wouldn't give anyone a second thought.

Once I got upstairs, I ditched dinner. I ate in my room and then went to the living room to see the scores. I was planning on going right back to bed after the scores were shown. The scores came on the TV and started with District 1, as usual. Mathias Xinlim got a score of 10, two points away from the highest score. Dianna Weston got a score of 6, not the lowest score I had seen a career get, but definitely toward the lowest. Randy Rope got a score of 9. Kyler Ashfield 8. John Palin 9. Jess Palin 5. Trey Woodlee 11. Hope Countell 7. Josiah Ratlee 8. Bailey Hadison 5. Tyler Hadix 7. Abbi Snyder 4. Me 8. Leah 10. Jose Mattison 7. Georgia Alli 4. Stephan Locklee 8. Madison Watson 6. Evan Powers 9. Taylor Lottlee 5. West Jadson 11. Rakayah Danielson 9. David Franklin 7. Natalie Radison 5. As soon as the scores were off the screen, I got up and stormed off toward my room. I laid down in my bed and after a few minutes, I slipped into sleep. The dreams of games followed me into my sleep, and I woke up multiple times, but luckily I kept finding my way back to sleeping. I was thankful that I could fall back asleep all of the times I woke up from nightmares.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up to my prep team in my room. They led me off to the prep room, telling me all about how they wished me luck in my interviews and how they just knew I'd be an instant fan favorite. After hours of prepping my hair and making sure I looked 'exceptable', I was led to where Natten was waiting for me. We spent a while trying to decide what suit would be better for me to wear in the interview. Natten ended up putting me in a dark blue and black suit.

"It's not that showy, but maybe the crowd will like you for your cautious approach to the interview dressing." Natten said. I nodded and looked in the mirror.

"You'll do fine, kid. Just remember, be yourself. You're a brilliant and nice kid from what I've seen of you. Don't let the crowd or interviews get to you. People will like you for you." Natten told me. I guess I had looked nervous or something. I nodded again. Natten led me up to the elevator and pushed a button to send me to where I was suppose to go for the interviews.

"Just remember. Be yourself." He quickly said before the elevator door closed. I took a deep breath as the elevator took off. Within a few minutes, the door was opening again and I was stepping out into a room where most of the erst of the tributes were already standing. I saw that when Natten said I was in the calm outfit, he wasn't kidding. Most of the other tributes were in bright reds, yellows, bright greens, or some other bright mix of colors. I suppose I was the calmly dressed person out of this bunch. After a while, we were escorted out onto the stage where the interviews began.

Dianna Weston went first with a classic story about how she just hoped she could make it out of the games. Mathias claimed that although he was already popular with the Capitol women, he bet that once he won he'd become even more popular among the Capitol people. Mathias also claimed that he would spend as much time as possible in the Capitol. Most of the rest of the tributes just talked about how they wanted to win and how they had family back home that needed them. Leah's interview is one I tuned out completely. I didn't want to hear whatever she'd tell the Capitol audience.

When Cesaer introduced me, I sat down in the chair and smiled out to the crowd. "So, Seth. Do you like the Capitol?" Cesaer asked.

"Of course, I do. Who wouldn't, Cesaer?" I replied smiling at him before looking back at the crowd.

Cesaer nodded. "Seth, what about having your sister in the games with you?"

"Well, I'll tell you the truth, Cesaer. No sibling relationship is perfect. It's hard knowing that only one of us will win. Knowing one of us will die. I hate it, Cesaer. Just like I hated it when my oldest brother, Luca, died a few years ago in the Games. I wished every night that he would come home, but this time if I wish that my sister will go home, that's me wishing I die pretty much." I stated, looking over at Cesaer. To Cesaer's credit, he's a good actor. He put on a sad smile and nodded sadly.

"I understand, Seth. It must be hard to be the third person out of your group of siblings to go into these games." Cesaer said. "What if neither of you win?"

"I personally don't want to think about that. I want one of us to win. My family can't lose three people."

Cesaer nodded. "Say you win, what are you planning on doing?"

"Going back home and spending time with my family. Sure, I'll be back, and I hope the Capitol citizens welcome me back as much as possible, but first I'm going back home to spend time with my two brothers and parents." I replied.

After a few more comments, my interview was over and the rest of the tributes had their interviews. I paid no attention to the rest of the interviews because finally it was dawning on me. Tomorrow I'd be heading to the arena. Tomorrow would be the first day that I'd be facing death. After the interviews, we were let back inside and I hurried upstairs and straight to my room. I laid down, but no sleep came. I should've figured as much.


	5. Chapter 5

I woke up the next morning to find Natten sitting in my room. I nodded at him and stood up.

"Ready to head to the hovercraft? You'll get breakfast on it." Natten said slowly. I nodded and we headed out of my room. I didn't know that I wouldn't be seeing anyone else until the arena or else I wouldn't of gone straight to bed last night. I would've spent some time saying goodbye to everyone. We got toward a ladder going up into a hovercraft. I got on the ladder and was instantly froze into place. A Capitol worker injected something into my arm and I was free to go again. Natten got into the hovercraft after me. We sat down and Natten ordered some food for me.

"Eat. You don't know when you're next chance will be." He said, nodding at the food. I took a few bites of different stuff that was common breakfast items. I was nervous about going into the arena, so it was hard to think about eating now, even though I knew that it would be a while until I got to eat again. The trip to where the arena was seemed to take forever and yet no time at the same time. Soon enough, we were getting off of the hovercraft in some sort of basement. Natten handed me a change of clothes which I guessed where the clothes for the arena. I went into a bathroom and changed outfits.

Afterwards, Natten and I sat down for a few seconds. Natten got up as soon as a count for tributes to be in the arena started.  
"You'll do just fine, Seth." Natten said, placing his hands on my shoulders. "Trust no one. Trust everyone but who wants you to trust them."

I nodded and swallowed. "I'll miss you, please tell everyone that I'll miss them if I die." Natten nodded and then hugged me. I walked over to the tunnel going up to the arena and stepped on the plate. The tube came down around me knocking out any noise. Natten waved at me and slowly the bottom plate that I was standing on lifted into the arena.

I looked around to find the other 23 people. I was right between Trey and Leah's plates in the arena. The first 50 seconds of the minute we were stuck on the plate seemed to go on forever, then the ten second countdown started. 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2...

"Welcome to the 116th Hunger Games ladies and gentlement!" A voice boomed out.

Then a cannon sounded and everyone was off running toward the cornucopia, me included. I looked ahead of me to see that Trey had found himself a trident and a net already and that the rest of the careers where picking through the weapons. I heard running coming up behind me and I ducked quickly. Trey let the trident fly through the air and I heard it stick in someone behind me. A cannon sounded out. I grabbed a backpack, a spear, and some knives and got up to run toward the jungle. Once I was inside the safety of the jungle, I started slowing down to a walk. I sat down as soon as I came to a log that was laying over. I heard a rock slip behind me and I stood up with my spear. Rakayah Danielson from District 11 slipped out from behind a tree. I smirked and relaxed my grip on my spear.

"Hey." I said quietly.

"Hey." She replied. "Allies right? Want some water, I grabbed two backpacks and they both had a bottle of water in them." I nodded and she tossed me a bottle. I opened it and took a drink. After a few seconds of drinking, two more cannons went off.

"Want to go spy on them all? I got knives, a backpack, and a spear." I asked. Rak nodded and we walked towards the edge of the jungle. It looked like the careers and only a few people else were still near the cornucopia. I watched as Leah swung an ax toward the girl from District 3's head. What was the girls name? Jess Palin. The older sister of the male tribute, John Palin. John was in the careers though. I let out a breath as Jess Palin's head ended up disconnected from the rest of her.

"Lets get out of here." Rak said as the cannon went off to signal the death of the tribute from District 3. Her brother had just stood there without doing anything as his sister was beheaded. I nodded after a few minutes and we picked up our stuff and headed further into the jungle. I took two of the backpacks and let Rak carry the knives. I kept my spear out ready to attack anyone who showed up. We walked for what must have been hours without hearing another cannon. I could only think that now the careers were hunting for people to kill. Rak stopped walking beside me and looked over at me.

"Can you climb?" She asked.

"Yeah." I replied, looking up. The trees weren't too tall so I could climb them. Rak nodded before walking toward one of the shorter trees and climbing up it. I readjusted my backpacks and hooked my spear in them before climbing up another tree next to the one that Rak had climbed. We sat up in the trees for a while, going through our supplies. The backpack I had grabbed had a few apples and oranges in it. It also had some bread and a thing of water. We split some of the fruit, bread, and drank some water for a meal. We mostly sat in silence while eating and after we were done. We found a way to strap all of our weapons and the bags to the trees in a way that shouldn't have been seen if we were found by anyone. As the light went down, every sound that the jungle made began to make me nervous.

"Who should take the first watch?" Rak asked me.

"I will." I replied, she nodded. Thats when the Capitol seal came up in the sky. It showed the faces of the dead. Kyler Ashfield from District 2, who was also a career. Jess Palin from 3. Bailey Hadison from 5. And Abbi Snyder from 6. Four people dead in one day. After a while, I was awake by myself and looking around the ground waiting for anyone to show up. I wondered what the rest of the tributes were doing right now, were they all asleep? Hunting each other? I spent most of the night holding my spear in my arms watching the ground.

As the light started to come up, I had just spotted an apple tree off in the distance. I slipped down the tree with some knives, my spear, and an empty backpack. After a slightly long walk in the halfway dark light, I reached the tree. As I was quickly pulling apples off of the tree and throwing them in the bag, I heard footsteps coming. I turned around and saw the careers passing by. I ducked behind a bush that was right beside me and waited until they passed by. I went back to filling the backpack with apples. It wasn't the best sort of meal, but at least it was here. I stopped once the bag was halfway full and searched around the nearby area. I found an orange tree which I grabbed as much oranges as I could fit into the bag with the apples. I could possibly find these trees again if needed. I headed back to the camp where Rak was and made my way up my tree. By the time I got back, the sun had already came up. Rak was awake and looked at me once I got up the tree.

"Went in search of food." I explained. I tossed her an orange and an apple and picked out my own orange. I peeled it with a knife before starting to eat a couple oranges.

After we ate our breakfast, we ran out of water. "I can go looking for water." I said, looking at Rak.

"You do realize I can do stuff on my own right?" Rak stated, looking at me. I nodded.

"So, want to split up and whoever finds water first comes back here?" I asked. Rak nodded.

We eat took knives, and a backpack, which contained apples, oranges, and a water bottle each. We left one pack on the tree so that we'd be able to spot it when coming back. I headed off in the complete opposite direction of Rak. I was hoping I could spy on people in my search for water, to see how everyone else was doing. There had been no more deaths, I knew that much. But how was everyone else handling being in the arena? I kept walking until I finally found what appeared to be a river running through the jungle. I wondered for a split second whether or not the river was posioned before I tossed down the backpack and jumped into the river. I grabbed onto a rock once I came back out of the water. It didn't seem posioned, so I pulled myself up onto the rock filled my bottle of water and ate an orange while waiting for a while. I decided that I'd hang out at the river for a while, just to see if there was anything else around here. It was good to know another place in the arena. After I'd finished off a couple apples and oranges, I filled my water bottle back up and was fixing to leave the river when I heard a noise coming from the other side of the river. I turned around in time to find a knife flying right towards my head and to see the Careers running up to the river.


	6. Chapter 6

I let out a scream as the knife pierced my shoulder. I grabbed the knife instantly and pulled it out of my shoulder, which only ended up causing the bleeding to start even worse. I grabbed my spear and tossed my backpack onto my shoulder. I looked at the river and saw that Mathias, Trey, and Leah were already halfway across the river with their weapons up and ready to end my time in the games. I took off running through the jungle. I heard a knife go past my head and saw it land in the bark of a nearby tree. I heard three pairs of footsteps close behind me and I tried to hurry up through the thick brush of the jungle. It wasn't as easy as I hoped for it to be to run through the vines and weeds. It seemed as if every vine was a hand trying to trip me and help the careers. I turned heading down a slope to try to get the careers off my heels. It didn't work, they turned perfectly as if they were thinking I'd do this. I turned once again to heading back toward the river. I needed a plan and going back to the river and jumping in seemed like the best plan I currently had, other than turning around and hoping that I had enough talent to actually fend off the careers, which wouldn't happen. They were trained for this, I wouldn't last two seconds. I tumbled through a couple bushes and found myself in front of the river. Only a few more steps to freedom.

That's when my foot slipped into a hole in the ground and I flew forward. Landing on my stomach. I rolled onto my back right as Trey jumped on me. I grabbed a knife from my belt and quickly sliced it across Treys cheek, leaving a gash. Trey held his knife's tip against my throat and glared down at me. With his other hand, he wiped his face, leaving a streak of blood down his jaw. I looked behind him and saw Mathias and Leah standing there grinning at me. Trey's expression changed and he moved the knife from my neck. He quickly stabbed the knife into my leg and stood up. I grabbed at my leg, I didn't want to move the knife out of fear that I'd tear something, if nothing had been torn already. Trey looked back at Mathias.

"Help me throw him into the river. His stuff too." Trey said before grabbing me.

Mathias picked me up too, and together they flung me into the river. My stuff landed a second after me right near me and I was lucky enough to be able to grab onto the backpack and spear. I'm not sure how long I had floated there, since I had gone in and out of being awake.

When I came completely to, I realized that I was far away from the careers and that the sky was getting darker. I needed to get out of the river and find somewhere to stay for the night. I wouldn't be able to make it back to the camp I had been staying at. I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to find it again tomorrow. I caught onto a vine and dragged myself, my spear, and my backpack up onto a rock. It felt good to be back on solid warm ground. I laid on the rock for a few minutes before rolling over and looking at my leg. The knife was buried up to the handle in my leg, I definitely couldn't walk with it stuck in my leg, and I might not be able to walk even with it out. I grabbed the handle of the knife and yanked it out. The pain in my leg got worse, but it felt good to have the knife out of my leg. I tossed the knife into the river and looked around. I wasn't sure where I was. I hadn't been in this part of the arena yet. I slowly got up and started walking. I walked for as long as I could before stopping to look for shelter, I didn't care where I had to stop for the night, I just needed somewhere to stay for the night. I found a bush that I could crawl under. I got under the bush and laid down. I fell asleep right as the Capitol seal came onto the sky.

* * *

As soon as I woke up, I sat up. I needed to start moving. My leg and shoulder were sore beyond belief, but I couldn't waste time laying here and hoping that I wouldn't be found under a bush, practically defenseless. I grabbed my backpack and pulled out the bottle of water, I took a drank of it before placing it back into the bag and crawling out from under the bush. I took walking slow for a while, and mainly ended up using my spear as a walking cane. After what must of been a few hours, I came to a clearing in the woods. I saw the cornucopia in the distance and saw all of the careers sat around it eating something. There was no telling what all they had gotten from all of the supplies they had at the cornucopia. They all looked in no hurry to get up, but I bet that'd change if they saw me standing there watching them. I took off walking again, hoping I was going in the right direction. I wasn't sure if I was or not, but at least I had found where I'd started two days ago. This was my third day in the arena, the thought seemed so weird and distant. I wasn't sure what I was suppose to do to keep going for more days until I was either killed or won the games. I walked until I needed a break. When I finally needed one, I sat down for a few minutes and took a drank of water. Then I continued on.

When I finally saw the familiar backpack hooked on the tree, I let out a sigh and took off running as best as I could. Once I got to the tree, I looked up it. No sign of Rak though. Had she not returned from looking for water yet? Was she searching for me? I didn't know. I thought about whether I should stay at the camp we'd set up or not. Would she even return back here if her search for me came up empty? Or would she find a new camp and live on her own. No cannon had fired as far as I knew, and my face wouldn't of been shown in the face the night before. I should've watched the sky to see if anyone had died while I was out cold. I looked around the jungle. I didn't know where to even start looking for my former ally, were we even still allies? I didn't know. What if she had decided that I was weak when I didn't return and that she didn't need me? I sat down on the ground and opened up my backpack.

I ate an orange and drank some more water. I needed a plan and I needed one quickly. I didn't want to be sitting here for the rest of the day by myself waiting. I sat there for a while longer, before standing up. I wasn't going to sit here waiting. I dropped an orange in front of the tree, to show that I'd been there. I'd come back tomorrow and check again. But for the rest of the day, I needed a new place to stay in case something wrong was going on.

I was about twenty steps from the tree when I heard a cannon fire. I stopped dead in my tracks. Had Rak died? Did Leah die? Who had been killed? Who had killed them? Would it be worse to be turned on by an ally and killed or be a 13 year old girl and get killed? I didn't know. Who did I want to live more? Who was my real allies? The people who had let me live when they could have easily killed me or the girl who was my first ally in the arena? I had no clue. I just knew I wasn't safe at all right now. No one was. From my memories of other games, when someone died, everyone else freaked out. Started running. Ran into each other. Got killed themselves. I took off running as good as I could and didn't look back. I didn't want to know if someone was there running after me. I didn't stop for a while, when I did it was because I saw a guy standing ahead of me. I recognized him as Tyler Hadix from District 6. I was about to turn around and run back to the way when I heard people running toward us. I turned in the direction I was sure was the cornucopia and took off running.

I was surprised when I got near the cornucopia and only saw two of the careers sitting there looking around. I recognized the boy from District 3, and the girl from District 4. I didn't want to risk having them both after me or alerting the rest of the careers if they were nearby. I figured that the careers were behind whoever died's death, but I couldn't be sure, there was way too many people in the games to be sure. I stood there for too long though and the boy from District 3, John Palin, called out to the rest of the careers.

Mathias Xinlim from the careers came running out of the jungle with his spear. I quickly grabbed a knife from my belt and took off running with my spear in one hand and the knife in the other. I had ran almost to the other side of the clearing which appeared to be some sort of lake and wheat field when Mathias tackled me. He threw his fist down toward my face. I took in a gasp of air as his fist connected with my jaw. So here's how my life in the arena was going to end. I was going to be killed by one guy, by him punching me to death. After a few more punches landed on my face, Mathias grinned down at me. After a second though, for some odd reason, the grin left his face. A second after the grin left his face, he slid off of me and to the ground screaming for the rest of the careers. I got up quickly and looked around. I saw Tyler Hadix, the male tribute from 12, and Rak standing there looking at me. They walked over as Mathias rolled onto his stomach, he wasn't dead but he wasn't going to be able to run from the look of where the knife had hit him. It appeared as it hit him right in the lung. His breaths were turning into wheezes, but I knew better than to think that he was actually going to die.

"We better get out of here." The guy from District 12 said, nodding at the trees in the wheat field with the lake. We all headed toward the trees in the completely new field. My guess was that either Tyler and the male from 12 were either going to hang around us or were just helping us because they had been there and they don't want the careers to win anymore than I do.


	7. Chapter 7

We all picked out our own trees as soon as we got to the trees, of course the four trees we all picked were next to each other but not easy to spot from the ground. We mainly chose the trees due to them being right next to this creek that led into the lake from the river that I had encountered. We figured that the creek was our best bet to get water from. The good decision of being right near the field which appeared to have a ton of different types of foods in the ground and in the trees was that we could pick our own food and have more options of food than just oranges and apples, if we could even find those trees again. I hoped that with our four people there'd be some sort of sponsors outside of the arena would be sending in other sorts of food, cause I was betting that I'd end up tired of fruits and vegetables. For a while after we made camp in the four trees, we sat there eating oranges and apples and drinking some water that Tyler had collected from the creek. I wondered what the rest of the tributes were doing right about now. Obviously they'd all still be shaken from the death of whoever it was earlier, and probably hiding from the careers. The careers were probably regrouping, I didn't know how Mathias Xinlim would be after the knife to the back. He didn't look necessarily good when I saw him, but he didn't look like he was about to die and I hadn't heard another cannon, so he was still alive somehow.

After I finished my orange, I told everyone I was going to head out and look for food in the fields, Tyler volunteered to go with me to watch my back while I got the food. I agreed to letting him help and we left David Franklin, the male tribute from 12, and Rak in the trees where we were camping at. Tyler and I each took a weapon and a backpack. The backpacks were empty, we figured we'd get back in time before we could get really thirsty, plus we weren't sure how much food we'd find. I had been planning on going by myself so I could try to spy on the careers, but that'd probably be alone with Tyler with me. We quickly were able to find some sort of huge green ball looking fruit that we planned on each packing one back to the camp. We weren't sure how we'd open them but we were definitely sure it wouldn't be easy to do in a tree. We would have to take longer to get back to the camp and we also wouldn't be as quick with our weapons if we were found, but we decided that the fruit, or whatever it was, was worth the trouble probably. We spent the couple hours we were out there picking up different types of vegetables and fruits. After that, I decided to ask Tyler if he'd mind spying on the careers for a few minutes.

"Want to check out what the careers are doing?" I asked, looking over at him while we carried what we were referring to as the green balls back to the camp.

"Sure, I guess we could. Where do we ditch the fruits and backpacks though? We can't just carry them with us to spy on the careers, that'd be extremely stupid of us to do that."

"We can hide them in the trees." I replied. Tyler nodded and we continued on to the tree line.

Once we dropped the fruit and backpacks off, we headed through the trees in the direction that the cornucopia was. It was close to nightfall so we thought that the careers would be back from hunting the rest of the tributes by now. At least, I hoped they weren't currently hunting us. Due to it being close to nightfall, I figured that soon most of the tributes would have picked a place to camp for the night and the careers might start hunting again for the night. I didn't know when exactly they thought they'd find more innocent defenseless people, but night seemed like the best chance to find people defenseless. I knew that with our extra two members now, we'd be able to set up better shifts for watches, but were we still defenseless even then? Tyler and I came to a place with a rock fence type of thing and lowered ourselves down behind the rocks. We peered over the rocks right at the cornucopia. I saw all of the careers sitting around a fire. They had the guts to actually make a fire, of course that's what I expected from the careers. They had Mathias leaning against the side of the cornucopia, and the rest of the pack looked to be eating dinner. We spent a few minutes watching them before heading back to the camp we had set up with David and Rak.

Once we got back to the camp with all of the food that we had gathered, we cut open one of the new fruits. It had a red inside with seeds that were black and white. We each ate a few pieces of the fruit for a meal and then we decided to take turns in watch shifts. My shift was the last shift, so I went on to sleep. I wasn't going to waste time trying to keep up a conversation with who all was on watch. I'd worry about conversations tomorrow.

* * *

When David woke me up for my shift, I looked around. It looked like it'd be light in a few hours, since it was still pitch black. David fell asleep right after he woke me up, so I spent my shift eating some fruit and drinking water. After a while, everyone woke up after a while from each other. I wasn't sure what we were going to do today, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do. I wanted to look around the arena, but the last time I really did that I got into two fights with the careers. We spent a while in the trees trying to decide what we should do for the day. We had enough fruits and vegetables to last us for at least another day or two, so we didn't need to go in search of more food. We could've tried to go and steal some of the careers supplies, but we didn't know what sort of plan they had in case someone tried to steal any of their supplies, so it wouldn't be a smart idea for us to go to do that. We were really at a loss of ideas of what to find for the day. We couldn't just sit here all day. We could go look for a new place to set up camp in this area of the woods, but would that even help us at all in the games. We all took a vote and ended up with David and I heading out to find a new camp.

We headed out with supplies to last us for a day in case we couldn't get back right away. We didn't talk for most of the time we were walking. I wasn't even sure if he wanted to be in this alliance, I didn't know if he was going to kill me as soon as I thought I could trust him. He could convince Tyler and Rak that the careers had killed me and go right back into the alliance. I stayed away from him far enough to wear I'd see an attack coming, but close enough to where I could keep up with him if he made a sudden turn. David turned and looked at me.

"Any clue where we should be at?" He asked. I shrugged, and thats when I heard it. The sizzling sound that could only be one thing that I knew of. I turned and looked back the way we had came. Sure enough, there were trees falling from fire, and it looked like it was a huge fire.


	8. Chapter 8

David and I took off running in the opposite direction from the fire. I wasn't sure what had happened to cause the fire, because it looked like a huge monster streaming right toward us. I took off in a different direction from David at one point because there was fire in front of us too. It appeared to be surrounding us completely. Trapping us in a circle in the arena. Had the gamemakers decided they needed more bloodshed? Had they decided that we were going to be burned to death? Were we doomed? I didn't know which part of the arena I was heading for, but I didn't care at that moment. Surely, no one would be hunting each other when they were having to escape from a fire. At least I hoped not. I sprung over a bush and kept running, all of the sudden all the sunlight seemed to be a red color instead of the usual color that it was. There seemed to be smoke everywhere. I wondered if there was even a safe spot in the arena. What if there wasn't? We'd all be trapped to our fire deaths. Certainly, the Capitol wouldn't have a games with a victor. Would they?

After running for a while in the smoke from the fire, I got tired of running. I still had the wounds from being stabbed, and my face didn't feel like the best thing from Mathias Xinlim's beating. I leaned up against a tree and looked back. The fire appeared to have lost some of its growing speed, but it still seemed like it was coming toward me. I wondered if anyone was stuck in the fire dying yet. I needed to move. I didn't know where to go to, but I couldn't stay near the fire. I took off running across the cornucopia clearing. I looked over and saw all of the careers heading toward the same way I was going, they were also trying to get all of their supplies out of the clearing. I stopped and waited til they were all gone into different ways in the woods. I ran over and grabbed a box and a backpack from the supplies that were piled up in a heap. I took off running again and headed straight for the river. Water was the only place I could think to go. When I reached the river, there was fire on the other side of it. I dove into the river right as I heard an explosion. I watched as a ball of fire went over the river. I was so glad for the waters protection. I swam away from the fire, and kept swimming for as long as I could without taking a breath of air. I looked around and saw that I was far enough away from the fire to be safe, there was also a camp on the land. It had a fire pit and a few sleeping bags tossed around it. I slowly dragged myself out of the water. I pulled the supplies I had out of the water and looked around. The box out of my supplies looked ruined, but I could hope that the contents inside weren't ruined even if the box was.

"Hey! You! What are you doing here?" A loud voice yelled at me. I turned around and saw two male tributes. I recognized them as Josiah Ratlee from District 5 and Jose Mattison from District 8.

"Fire ran me out of my camp, sorry didn't realize this had someone here." I explained. They nodded, and looked at the fire in the distance. I did the same. Josiah walked over and grabbed the box and opened it. Inside in had different types of foods, including bread, fruits, and meat.

"You can stay for now." Jose said, grabbing the backpack that I had stolen from the careers. They took the supplies over to the fire pit. I grabbed the rest of my stuff and followed them over. Josiah looked at me and shook his head.

"You're in luck, we were teaming with another person, but they left us today to go and find food and try to take some stuff from the careers. Extra sleeping bag, if she doesn't return. If she does, you'll have to sleep on the ground." Josiah said, nodding to a sleeping bag. I nodded at him. I was glad for the place to stay, even if I didn't know them really. They could've killed me and took my supplies, but instead they decided to let me stay. We ate a meal of meat, fruit, and bread in silence. I sat on the ground while I dried off. That's when we heard the cannon fire. We all shot up off of the ground and grabbed our weapons. Another tribute had died. Did they die due to the fire? Or did they die due to another tribute? We wouldn't even know until tonight, when they showed who died, if none of us died before then. After a few minutes, we all sat back down. The fire seemed to be going down in the distance. I kept my spear in my hand and looked at the fire pit.

"We'll start a fire up again tonight." Jose said, looking between me and the pit. I nodded and looked around the campsite. There wasn't many trees at this part of the river, more like what I guessed was sand on the ground. After a while, I told them that I was going to go look around and get familiar with the new area. I told them I'd be back at nightfall at latest. They nodded and went back to staring at the sky.

I took off walking with a backpack and my spear. It took a while to walk back into trees, but when I finally did, I couldn't help but question whether or not I should just hide out in the trees and leave Josiah and Jose to their alliance of two or three people, if their friend was going to come back. I sat down on a fallen tree branch and thought for a while. I could leave them, but then I'd be completely alone. Whereas with them, I'd have some sort of back-up for now. I didn't want to be alone against the careers. Or I could go back and look for David, Tyler, and Rak. That outcome didn't seem likely though, so I decided to stay with Jose and Josiah. I'd go back to the camp at nightfall and act like a part of their team. When I needed to, I'd split up from them and go out on my own. I got back up and took off walking again. I only stopped when I heard voices up ahead. I sat down behind a rock and listened closely to what they were saying.

"Trey, you're ideas are stupid. That's what I'm saying!" A voice boomed. The voice sounded angry. I knew who the group ahead was though. The careers. There was only one Trey in the arena and he was with the careers.

"I don't care Randy! I said we're following the river!" Trey's voice replied in the same tone as Randy's voice had been.

"You're both idiots! You're wanting to lead us straight back to the fire area!" Leah's voice yelled at them. I smirked. So those three were alive, not to mention most likely the rest of the careers.

"Then what's your idea, Princess?" Mathias Xinlim's voice said quietly compared to the other's. "We go back and hope we find somewhere to hide out at? Won't work."

Mathias, Trey, Randy, and Leah all got into an argument that changed from yells to quieter. I couldn't hear most of it, just some words which made no sense when I connected them all together in my mind. I crawled forward to another rock and peered to where the careers were standing. Trey's side of his tribute outfit had been burned away, along with a few layers of his skin it looked like. All of the remaining careers were there, although a few like the District 3 male tribute, John Palin, and the District 4 female tribute, Hope Countell, looked bored with the arguing.

"I told you all I can make mines!" John Palin's voice called out to break up the argument. "We could hide out somewhere! I could block us all off! We'd be safe!"

All other voices cut off at John's suggestion. I nodded to myself, it was actually a good idea. But I couldn't see them stopping arguing for good. They'd still need a place to stay at, which they'd all probably have a different opinion as to where they should stay at. I was right because a few seconds after the idea sunk in for them all, everyone started shouting out their own opinions. I crawled around them, leaving a ton of space between us all. Once I was past them, I took off running. I didn't hear any footsteps behind me, so they either had been to busy arguing to realize anyone was there or they just didn't care anymore. I remembered to make sure I kept on an easy trail to go back to the campsite at night. I couldn't risk not remembering the way back. I'd die on my own at this pace. I stumbled down a hill and stopped walking. I looked behind me, no one was there. I sat down and took a deep breath. I looked up at the sky and saw that the light was changing. I needed to start heading back soon. I took an orange, a roll of bread, and my bottle of water out of my backpack and ate a meal.

Once I was done, I got up and started walking back. It was getting dark, soon the Capitol seal would be in the sky and would be telling us who died. I needed to make it back to the campsite by then. Also to see if Jose and Josiah's friend had made it back or not. I stoped and listened when I reached the part where the careers had been. I didn't want to just walk up on them. There was no voices though, just silence. They must of eventually chosen a spot to go for the night, which was good for me. The Capitol seal showed up in the sky. I stopped and looked at it. The girl from District 12, Natalie Radison, had died. That was the cannon. Afterwards, I continued walking back to the camp. When I was close to the camp, I saw the glow of a fire. When I got there, I was greeted by Josiah and Jose. No third person.

"She's dead. Our partner." Josiah said. He looked at the sleeping bag on the ground. "You can stay here in the sleeping bag, if you'd like. You got first watch, by the way." I nodded and sat down on the sleeping bag. I stared into the fire and stayed quiet. Josiah and Jose went to sleep after a few minutes. I sat there staring at the fire until Josiah got up and nodded at me.

"Go to sleep. It's my turn to guard now." He said slowly. I nodded and laid down inside the sleeping bag, I pulled my spear inside of it with me. It was warm after a few minutes, and I quickly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning, I was alone. Completely alone. Only things that were left at the campsite was my backpack, the sleeping bag, and my spear. I sat up and looked around. It didn't look like anyone was planning on coming back. I was alone, and I was going to be staying alone apparently. I got up and looked into my backpack. There was fruit, water, and bread. I grabbed some food and got up. I rolled up my sleeping bag and looked around. I was going to go look for a new camping spot since this had been Jose and Josiah's spot. I didn't want anyone to find me here. I got up and packed the sleeping back ontop of the backpack, I carried them both on my back and the spear in my hand. I walked for what must of been hours before stopping to take a break. I stopped and sat on a rock that was halfway over the river. I could've stayed there, but that would've been too easy. Instead, I kept walking and hoped I wouldn't run into trouble.

Only, wouldn't that be too easy?


	9. Chapter 9

When you're walking, you tend to not realize the fact that you come to a stop under a huge nest of hornets. Of course you realize it eventually, when, you know, they realize you're there and they come out to teach you a very important lesson. It doesn't turn out too pretty for you, but, hey, whatever makes them feel better afterwards, right?

Yep, that's what happened to me. I heard the buzzing a second before I felt them all over me. I screamed and tossed myself around. I tried to launch myself into the river, which didn't work. I ended up landing and hitting my head right on a rock. My vision blacked out within seconds.

* * *

When I came to, I wasn't in the same place I had been. I wasn't alone now either. The first thing I really noticed was the sleeping bag, I was inside of it. The second was the fire light that was right next to me. The third was the fact that there was a shadow sitting next to me staring at the fire. I felt like crap, I figured at least a head injury, not to mention who knows how many stings from the hornets.

I slowly sat up and ran my tongue across my lip, there was a huge cut and bump on my lower lip. I could only imagine what the rest of me looked like from the hornets. I looked around the ground and food multiple boxes and bags of supplies. I looked at my guest. I was surprised when a cut up face looked over at me and I realized it was Mathias Xinlim. He looked to be roasting some sort of nuts next to the fire. He also had some raw meat frying in the fire.

"Look like hell." He commented before looking back at the fire.

"You don't look so hot either." I replied laying back down. Minutes of silence went by.

"Why'd you save me?" I asked, looking at the fire.

"Let me explain." He began. "Most of us careers split up after the fire. We were in arguments, and just needed to get away from each other, you know? So, we split up. I went off by myself. I sat up camp here, figured it was a good spot. Plus I could store all of the supplies I managed to walk off with here without having to try to find other places to hide it. After a while, I heard you screaming. I figured I might as well check out who it was. That's when I spotted you knocking yourself out. Nice gash on your head by the way. So, I waited til the hornets appeared to be finished with you, and then I dragged you here. I made sure to get all of your stuff."

I nodded. "Thanks." I mumbled.

"No need to thank me." He replied. I looked up at the sky, it was still light, looked to be mid-day. So I hadn't been out cold that long, which was good.  
I laid in the sleeping bag until the meal was finished, after that, I got out and sat down on the sleeping bag. Mathias and I ate in silence. The nuts and meat he had cooked turned out to be good, I was surprised at how good it was. Maybe I was just starving, I don't know, but the meal was great. It's great quality could also have been the fact that it was the first cooked meal I'd had since coming into the arena.

"So, are you just going to take off like my last two allies did?" I asked once I had finished eating. Mathias shook his head.

"No. I'd be stupid too. You've faught some of us careers, you're a good fighter. You'll do well as an ally." He replied, standing up. He stomped out the fire and looked around. He nodded to himself and grabbed one of the backpacks on the ground before looking back at me. "I'm going to go get some water. Stay here and try to get over the stings and gash."

I nodded and looked at the ground. I couldn't afford to have anymore enemies in the arena after me, so Mathias was a good ally to have. He was useful with a sword and a spear as I had seen in the training center and in the arena. He could also cook. I wouldn't do well on my own without those qualities. Eating fruit and bread was getting old, it was nice to have cooked meals. Mathias was back after a while and he started pulling some of the food I was carrying in my backpack out.

"I found all of these tomatoes and peppers in your pack earlier when I was looking through it for some food. I figured that for a meal, I can roast some tomatoes, peppers, and fry some meat up. It'll be good. At least, good for the arena." Mathias said, tossing a bottle of water to me. I took a drink before answering him.

"Sounds like a good meal." I said, taking a few more drinks. He pulled a knife out of his pocket and peeled an apple. He cut it in half and handed me a half. I ate the apple half before standing up and walking around the camp. I needed to stretch and get to where I could actually move quickly if I needed to. I looked at my arms to find a ton of spots where the hornets had stung me. Mathias watched me as I walked around. I couldn't tell if he was worried I was going to collapse or if I was going to attack him. After I sat back down, he appeared to relax again. I didn't know what to try to start a conversation about with Mathias, so I just stayed quiet. I looked around the camp a few times during the hour or two that we were silent. No one seemed to be heading this way so we must have been pretty safe. I decided that I was going to take a nap before dinner to try and let some of the pain from the stings and the gash wear off. Mathias just nodded and told me it was a good idea. One good thing about having an ally who saved your life is that they don't question when you rest afterwards. I fell asleep quickly after I laid back down. I woke up to Matt shaking me awake. I sat up and looked around, the light was different so a few hours must have passed.

"Meals started, didn't want you to miss it or be tired when it's done." He explained. I nodded and looked at the fire. We sat there in silence other than a few comments while the meal cooked. Once the food was done, we ate in silence. It was weird being around someone who had tried to kill me. But I knew Mathias was capable of killing tributes in the arena, so I wasn't as nervous about whether I was going to be attacked or not by other tributes, the person I was questioning about whether or not an attack would come from was Mathias himself. After dinner, I figured we needed to figure out a guarding plan.

"So, I guess I'll guard first." I offered. "Since I slept some today already."

"Works for me. I'm tired anyway." Matt replied. "Just wake me up whenever you're tired of your shift on guard."

I nodded. We spent the next few hours looking around and eating some fruit. When the Capitol Seal came and left the sky with no deaths for the day, Mathias went ahead and went to sleep. I offered him the sleeping bag but he refused to take it, instead just laying close to the fire. I kept looking around the area wondering if an attack came, where it would come from. Would the rest of the careers be mad at Mathias? Was he the only career that actually split off from the rest of the group? I didn't know any answers to any of the questions that kept in my thoughts. As soon as I felt tired, I shook Mathias awake and laid down in my sleeping bag. I wasn't really as nervous about having Mathias on guard as I had been with David and Tyler. For some reason, my odds seemed better against Mathias than I would of been against David and Tyler. Sleep came quickly after I laid down.


	10. Chapter 10

When I woke up the next morning, Mathias was still sitting there, on guard. I sat up all the way and looked around. Mathias looked over at me, nodded, and tossed me an orange. I took it and peeled it. Our breakfast of oranges was quiet, as everything seemed to be when staying with Mathias. He just seemed to be quiet in general. I was starting to wonder if everything in District 1 was quiet, or if it was just Mathias' family. I looked over at him and saw that he was just looking around our small camp. Did he like having an alliance with me that much that he wasn't on guard around me? Did he actually trust me or was it just some sort of plan to get me to trust him? I looked over at him. "So, what is it like in District 1?" I questioned, not sure that he'd even answer my question but figuring it was worth a shot at asking anyway. Mathias shrugged. For a minute after his shrug, I thought I wasn't going to get an answer out of him at all other than the shrug.

"Different. Quiet. Nice. I'd assume that District 7 was different than here too." He replied, looking over at me. I nodded. District 7 was definitely different from the arena, as I guessed every district was. I missed District 7 the more I was here. At the same time, the more I was here the less I could remember about District 7's every detail. It was weird not to remember exactly what 7's sky looked like, or what the trees looked like. Every detail seemed to slip away in the time that I had avoided thinking about District 7.

"Yeah, my home was very nice. And very different form here." I said simply, not wanting to say that I couldn't remember many details that I use to adore about my own home district. What kind of tribute would I be? Not remembering my own district. If I said that out loud, I'd be the tribute who everyone would make fun of for years. That was definitely something I wasn't looking forward to having happen. I'd rather not be all of Panem's new joke of the century. So I kept my mouth quiet on that fact and acted like I could remember everything about my district, just not willing to actually tell Mathias all about it.

"So, how's your time in the arena been?" I asked, to get us onto a different topic. I wasn't comfortable sitting in silence, but that might of been due to the fact that for most of my life I've had four siblings, and for the last few years had three. Hardly ever any silence around a house with that many kids.  
"You're really asking that?" Mathias asked standing up and glaring at me.

"Really? Kid, how idiotic are you? This is the Hunger Games! 23 of us will die! Some of us already have! Only one of us is going to make it out of here! And you're asking me about how my time in the arena's been? Have you not seen my face? You were there when I got stabbed! You should have a clue about how my time in the arena's been!"

I looked down at the ground. It had been a stupid question to ask. I thought about Mathias' response and my response to his rant. How weak did I look on everyone in Panem's TV's? Sitting here and staring at the ground while I'm being yelled at? Didn't really look like a great out-come for me currently, if I was being shown on TV's around Panem right now. I stood up and shoved Mathias as hard as I could. He took a step backwards, but didn't lose his footing.

"I was trying to be nice! You know that's this thing that usually at least halfway happens in alliances! Usually allies actually try to talk and come up with a plan instead of just ignoring each other!" I yelled at him. Mathias grabbed a knife from his belt. I didn't make any move to grab a weapon. I'd grab one when, and if, it came down to a fight. I was pretty sure I could out-run Mathias, so I'd be able to at least stand a chance to grab a weapon if it came down to that.

"You think I don't know how an alliance works? I was in the Career Pack, Seth! I'm not an idiot! I was in an alliance with your own sister! A sister who didn't give you two thoughts while we were in the same alliance! Did she save you yesterday? No, I did. Because I think you're worth something. You're not some idiot kid who needs protecting. You've lasted this long relatively on your own." He stated, letting go of his knife and walking around the campsite. I stayed quiet. Did my sister really think I was some kid who would just need protecting if she teamed up with me? If that was how it was, I was glad I didn't try to get her to team up with me from the beginning of the games. I'd probably be dead by now if I had.

"Fine then. Run your part of the alliance how you want to. I'm running my part how I want to. So, if you don't like a question I ask, don't answer. But don't snap at me. Got it?" I said to him, walking around the campsite too. I didn't like to boss people around, especially when it came to people in the Games. Especially the career pack members, or former members. They knew how to kill obviously, so what was I doing bossing them around? I didn't know the first thing about really being a leader, other than how to boss people around, and I usually didn't even do a good job at bossing anyone around.

Mathias let out a laugh and shrugged. "Works for me. Just don't bug me too much, kid." he said, before returning back to beside the empty fire pit. He laid down and closed his eyes. For a few seconds, I thought he had fallen asleep, until I noticed that his breathing wasn't like a sleeping persons. A trick I had learned at home when my siblings would fake being asleep any time I was going to annoy them. I looked away from Mathias and went back to my own thoughts. I was snapped out of my thoughts as soon as I heard a noise. I looked up at Mathias to see if he had made whatever noise it was that I heard, he was staring off in the distance, I followed his line of view and saw a huge wave far up in the air. Mathias took off running toward me after he had been staring at the wave for a few seconds. I took off running right after him. The wave hit the ground seconds later, sweeping us both up in it's cold depths. I lost track of Mathias as soon as the water hit. I looked around in the water for as long as I could hold what little breath I managed to keep in my lungs when the water hit. After a few more seconds of looking for Mathias, I swam up to the top of the water. I looked around for Mathias, but I couldn't find him anywhere.

"Mathias!" I called out. No response came to my call. So I yelled out his name a few more times. Still nothing. I gave up after about five times of yelling his name. I spotted a log and swam over to it, laying halfway across it. I called out Mathias' name a few more times. After a few minutes I saw a head about twenty feet away from where I was. Mathias started swimming toward the log I was on, when he got close enough he grabbed onto the log and pulled himself up onto it some.

"Thought I'd lost you for a few minutes there." I said, grinning at him. He smiled back at me and nodded. We stayed quiet for a few minutes while looking around.

"So, what do we do now?" Mathias asked. I shrugged. I really had no clue what we needed to do now. We couldn't really just stay in the water a lot longer without getting cold. With being cold came being sick, and I wasn't all too happy with the idea of dying in the games by being sick. I would rather to die at least in some way that meant I was fighting back against the rest of the tributes, not dying due to a cold. After a while of silence, we both looked up in the air as a silver parachute flew down from the sky and landed behind the trees fifty feet away from us. I knew that the gift wasn't for us, because if it had been, it would've landed right near us. Mathias laid his head back down on the log once the parachute had landed.

"We need a plan. We can't stay here. We need to get out of the water." I stated, looking at Mathias. We couldn't just lay down and wait for death to come to us, we needed a way out of the water.

"Are you blind, Seth? Look around. Waters everywhere." Mathias said without looking up at all. I let out a sigh and looked back down into the water.

"I'd rather drown myself than just sit here." I mumbled under my breath. Mathias looked up and glared at me. I knew I must've hit a nerve by mumbling that. I just didn't know what nerve and why it was so easy to hit. But I was guessing by Mathias' face expression I was going to find out.

"Do you think I want to just sit here and die? Of course, I don't. I want to go back home to my family. But that's not possible right now, so I'm resting." Mathias snapped at me.

I looked back down at the water and let go of the log. I slid under the water and went a few feet deep in the water. I spent a few minutes down there, just looking around. When I came back to the top of the water and grabbed onto the log, Mathias was grinning at something. I turned around and looked. What I saw was Trey Woodlee, Leah, John Palin, and Dianna Weston on this raft type of thing. "Mathias! Seth!" Trey was yelling at us. Trey grabbed a net and threw it into the water. Mathias swam over and grabbed onto it. Mathias pulled himself into the raft with the help of Trey and John.

"Seth, you idiot, get up here." Leah snapped at me. I grabbed onto the net and was dragged up into the raft by Trey. I sat down next to Mathias and looked at everyone in the raft. They all appeared to be in pretty good shape, which was expected from the Careers. But they even looked better than Mathias did, although I suspected that none of them had been stabbed or cut up across their faces.

"So, hows the mines going?" Mathias asked laughing. John Palin rolled his eyes at him, while Dianna moved to sit at Mathias' other side. Trey took a seat between John and Leah. I looked around the raft, they had some supplies but not enough to last for however long the games lasted. Especially with six of us on the raft. We'd need some more supplies eventually.

"Where are we going now?" Trey asked, looking at John. John shrugged.

"Much of the Arena is flooded, only place that isn't will be the mountain. But you can figure that everyone including Randy will be heading there. But, we have six people now. We should be the largest alliance in this Arena. We will probably be safe there." John explained. Trey nodded and looked into the water.

We spent most of the day floating in, hopefully, the right direction. It was hard to tell if we were even heading the right way until we were there. The ride there was filled with conversations between the six of us. Everyone seemed please with the way that Mathias and I had faired in the day or two we were together in an alliance. Trey told stories about back in District Four when it would flood and everyone would just opt to stay in boats out in the oceans. After Treys stories about flooding, came a story of his where he swore that two Turtles came up to him and spent the entire day just hanging out on a beach with him. That story cracked up all of us in the raft. When we finally reached the mountain, Trey and Mathias jumped out of the raft. The rest of us followed. Mathias and Trey pulled the raft up onto the land. We all stood around for a while listening for other tributes, Trey deflated the raft and packed it up with a vine that he had from the jungle.

We were about to head up the mountain when we heard noises coming from near us. I recognized one voice as former Career Pack leader, Randy Rope. Trey pulled his trident from the ground and Mathias grabbed a spear that Trey had laying next to his trident. John handed me a spear. The rest of the Careers grabbed their weapons. Randy slowly walked into view, with the girl from District Four behind him. They both had weapons already ready to attack us. It was going to be six versus two. The odds should've been in our favor. So we went ahead and fought with Randy Rope and Hope Countell. I was chasing down Hope when I heard a sickening sound followed by a blood-filled yell. I turned around and saw that Trey had stuck his trident right into Randys stomach. Trey slowly pulled the trident out and kicked Randy away from him. Randy grabbed his stomach and slowly returned to his feet.

"This isn't the end, Woodlee." He said while blood went in a line down his chin from his mouth. He slowly walked away, leaving all of us in our alliance standing there watching him leave. "We should be safe for now, to find camp and all." Trey said. We started heading up the mountain. Mathias carried the raft in the ball that Trey had fixed it into, just in case we needed to return to the flooding water. On our way up the mountain, we often saw or heard other tributes but decided not to get into any fights for tonight. Everyone would be on edge since the flooding.

We chose a spot near the top of the mountain and made camp. Everyone decided on shifts for watching. Trey and I were the first shift, so after a poor dinner, we all spent some time talking. Once the sun went down, everyone but Trey and I went to bed. Trey and I's shift was quiet. I wasn't sure of what to tell him. Thanks for deciding to take me with you all and not just leave me there for dead? I just kept my mouth shut. Obviously, he probably hadn't been the person to decide that I was going with them, so I didn't feel the need to thank him for saving me. When Mathias and Dianna woke up for their shift, Trey and I went and laid down on opposite sides of the campsite. It felt nice to not be really worried about an attack during the night. I knew with the six of us, we were more than safe enough from everyone else. I fell asleep within minutes.


	11. Chapter 11

Waking up to find yourself still alive and still with the careers is definitely different. I can tell you that much. I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not when I first woke up. After a while, I finally decided that I was, indeed, awake and that I was still with the careers and alive. No one else had attacked us during the night, which is another great thing to find out. We were all sitting around talking about what to do for a meal when a small silver parachute flew down from the sky and landed right in front of Trey. He unwrapped it and there sat a loaf of bread with a green tint to it.

"It's from District 4, isn't it?" John asked.

"Yeah, it is from Four. Matt, give me a knife and I'll split it up." Trey said, holding the bread still. Mathias handed him one of his knives, and Trey cut up the bread into six equal parts. We all ate our parts of the bread and then starting planning.

"Should we go after Randy?" Mathias asked. "Finish him off, end his pathetic life?"

"No. We need to stay hidden. We don't know if he's going to go after the rest of the tributes, or if hes going to try to convince them to join his little alliance." Trey stated. I nodded. I didn't see anyone wanting to team up with Randy, but who knew? He could tell them that he wanted to get rid of the new career pack and that he needed their help to do so. A whole arena could join forces in order to get rid of the career pack. Gave everyone else a better chance at winning the games. We would be screwed if he could convince the remaining tributes that were on the mountain to team up with him.

"True." Mathias stated simply. After that, our entire camp went silent. We all just sat there in the silence doing whatever we wanted to. I was thinking, as I figured that half of the rest of my alliance was doing since they were just sitting there too. I only looked up from the ground when I heard footsteps coming toward our camp. Trey slowly stood up and grabbed his trident. I called Trey off from his attack as soon as I turned around and saw who the new group was. It was David Franklin, Rakayah Danielson, and Tyler Hadix.

"Don't do anything. They're my old alliance." I said, looking around the camp.

"You're alright." Tyler said, looking relieved. "We didn't know, when David came back and you didn't. We thought you had gotten burnt and were slowly dying somewhere."

"Yeah, I'm alive. Obviously. I'm glad you all are alright too." I said, looking at them all. They all looked to have done well in the past days since the fire seperated us all.

"Can we stay here with you all?" Tyler asked. "We have food and water. We even managed to get a tent from some sponsors. I'm sure we could squeeze everyone into it. It'd give some protection for those of us sleeping. Plus three new fighters couldn't hurt right?"

Trey looked to be thinking about if they were useful or not. I wanted to influence his answer, but I wasn't sure of what to say to him to get him to let them into our group. I just kept quiet instead of risking further making his decision of not letting them into the group.

"Fine, you're in." Trey said shortly. He turned away and looked off the mountain down to where all of the water was around the arena. I followed his view to the water. The view from this point in the mountain was awesome, I looked around at all of the arena that was visible. There seemed to be water everywhere from this view. I was surprised that this amount of tributes had made it to the mountain, I hadn't heard any cannons, so apparently most of the tributes had made it here or had survived somewhere else. Unless the cannon system had went out in the flood, which was a weird idea. What if we really had no way to tell if someone else had died?

After a while of silence, I looked around at the group I was with. There was nine of us. Surely we'd make it anywhere we headed at this point, even if some of the rest of the tributes teamed up on us. I walked along the end of the place in the mountain we were at. I didn't know how to suggest to the group that I thought we needed to move, but I knew I needed to say that we needed to. I turned around and looked at everyone. I certainly wouldn't be anyones pick as leader of this group. Mathias, Trey, and Leah were all definitely more deserving to be a leader than me. But if I didn't say anything, we'd stay here. I wanted to see the rest of the mountain and make sure that we were away from everyone, mainly Randy and Hope. I didn't want to be near them at all, due to the risk they brought up.

"We need to move." I stated. Leah, Dianna, Mathias, Trey, and John all looked up at me. Tyler, Rakayah, and David all looked like they agreed with me. "I know I'm not the leader here, but we really need to move. I don't trust being here for too long. I think we need to stay on the mountain but we need to move to somewhere else. I want more protection in a campsite than this place has. If some of you want to stay here I can just leave by myself."

"Us three are with Seth." David said, shrugging. Mathias stood up and walked over toward me.

"Same here." Mathias mumbled, looking back at all of the rest of the careers. I didn't know what kind of bond the careers had made with each other in the days they were all together in the arena, but it must of been a good bond and trust that they all had for each other.

"We'll all go." Trey stated, looking around. I was close to the conclusion of Trey being in charge of the career pack, but I knew more than likely my sister wouldn't let anyone be in charge of a group unless it was her, so the chances of Trey being in charge of the group with no complaints from anyone, especially Leah, would be really surprising. Everyone got up and started packing up our small camp. When we headed out to look for a new camp, everyone was armed with a weapon. There was tension in the air between all of us, which wasn't really all that surprising. We were heading into unknown areas. We didn't know who was already there or if they already had a plan of attack for anyone who walked into their camp. All we could hope for is that no one had created a pack bigger than nine people. If there was even enough people left for another team of nine or more people in this arena. I had lost track of how many people had died at this point. I probably had lost track days ago without noticing that I had even lost track. I wasn't sure the last time I even checked the skies at night, it had to be before I started teaming up with Mathias. We ended up in a thick section of jungle once we got further away from our former camp. The jungle seemed to lack any sort of light in it. At times it was hard to keep track of everyone in our group in that jungle section.

"Everyone watch out, I don't like this." Leah said quietly.

"You aren't the only one who doesn't like this. Talk about creepy ass jungles." Mathias mumbled. We continued through the jungle only stopping a few times for a couple minutes each time. None of us wanted to stay in the jungle, but we had to eventually take breaks from walking. The jungle seemed to never end and to get darker with every step we took away from the campsite that we had been at.  
We stopped to talk another break after a while longer of walking. None of us tried to start any sort of decent conversation. Thats when I heard it. A howling in the distance. I looked at the rest of the group and they all seemed to have heard it too. There was something in this part of the mountain other than us, and it wasn't any tributes. We all looked in the direction that the howling had came from.

"What do you think it was?" John asked quietly.

"I don't know, but I'm guessing we're going to find out if we aren't quiet." Leah mumbled. Mathias grabbed his spear back off of the ground. No one moved for a few minutes. That is, until a pack of muttation wolves showed up in our sight. There had been muttation's before in the arena. They were meant to hunt down tributes and kill them or drive them toward other tributes. The gamemakers usually used them whenever they were tied of the lack of deaths.

"On three, run." Trey muttered to us all. "If one gets near you, attack it. But focus on getting the hell out of here." We all got ready to take off toward the direction we had been heading, even though we didn't know what was waiting for us up ahead. We had came too far to turn around.  
"One... two... three!" Trey called out.

We all took off. I was toward the middle of our group in running. The mutts were right behind us. Mathias lashed out behind him with his spear and knocked a wolf away from his legs. One of the mutt's jumped onto John and knocked him to the ground. The mutt bit into the back of John's neck and was about to twist his head when it was hit with Treys tident. John was dragged off the ground by David and Tyler who dragged him up ahead of us. The rest of us turned our attention back on the wolves. The wolves were quick, which made them hard to actually hit with any sort of weapon. One of them bit into Matt's arm. I stabbed the one on Mathias' arm with my spear and then turned back to the wolf that had been in front of me. I was starting to get tired of fighting off wolves just to have more show up when all of the wolves suddenly stopped their attacks. They all turned around and ran off the way that they had came from.

"How's your arm?" I asked Matt. He shrugged and walked ahead to where John, Tyler, and David all were.

"How's he?" Mathias asked. David shrugged and walked back to grab his knives that he had dropped.

"Bleeding, sweating, doesn't look too good. Not sure if that thing was infected with anything that passed onto him or not." Tyler explained, looking up at Matt. I walked up behind Matt and looked down at John. Tyler wasn't kidding when he said that John didn't look too good. He looked about as good as the mutts did when we had stabbed them right before they fell down dead.

"I'm fine." John choked out, standing up slowly. Trey walked up carrying moss and a vine. He stood behind John and quickly made a bandage out of the moss and the vines across John's neck.

"That should hold up for a while. I'll pack some more moss and vines into a backpack." Trey explained, walking back to pack up more moss and vines for our trip.

"Should get Trey to bandage up your arm." I said to Mathias, looking at his arm. It was covered in his own blood and probably needed to be covered up from that wolf bite. Like Tyler had said we didn't know if the wolves were meant to infect us and kill us off or if they were just trying to kill us then and there. I guessed that there'd be no way to tell what the mutt's purpose was until someone died from the posion if thats what the mutts were doing by biting us. I wasn't going to bring up that fact that someone could die from the wolf bites.

"Can we find a new campsite?" John asked. "I'd like to find us a permanent camp so that I can set up some mines again."

Mathias nodded. We all packed up our stuff and took off walking again. Since we knew that the Gamemakers were now willing to throw mutts at us we all kept an eye out, watching a different area of the jungle at a different time. We took turns taking the lead through the jungle.  
Once we finally got out of the jungle, John's bandage on his neck needed changing, so we took a break while Trey fixed John up another bandage. We all drank the last of our water supply and ate what all we had left for food. We'd need more resources soon.

"Guys, I've been thinking. We need to go somewhere to get supplies. We can find a new camp, leave John and a couple others here, John can set up a mine system while some of us go looking for supplies. It's the best way to get supplies and get a camp set up for tonight." Trey said to us all after we were all done eating.

Mathias nodded. "Well, I volunteer to go get food." he stated while smirking at Trey.

"Same here." I said slowly. I'd definitely be better at getting food than helping set up mines.

"Leah, you want to go with us?" Trey asked, looking at my sister. Leah nodded. "So, me, Matt, Seth, and Leah will go back down in the raft looking for food after we find a camp. The rest of us will stay here. Deal?"

Everyone nodded. We started walking again after a few minutes. We all worked out our new plan on the way to finding a new camp. Matt, Trey, Leah, and I would be walking for a couple more hours to get to the water hundreds of feet below. After we got food and water, we'd return back to the mountain, and start the hour treck back up the mountain to our new campsite. We'd bring extra food and water for our trip back up the mountain. Everyone else would set up the camp and help John as much as possible with the mines system. They'd eat any nuts or other supplies they could find or get from sponsors while we were gone. If we ended up having to stay out over night, we'd find them tomorrow. When we got back to camp, John would have made out the mine system already, therefore he'd know where it was safe to step and where it wasn't. We'd quickly figure it. Then if the games lasted much longer, and the flood lasted the same amount of time, we'd repeat the pattern of that.

Wasn't the best plan in the world, but it was the best we could do. We couldn't justify bringing everyone right back down the mountain after our long trip already. Plus we needed John to make up a system of mines around our camp, it was our best chance at a defense system against any of the other tributes. Our plan was practically figured out detail by detail of the way we wanted it to go by the time we found a new camp. Once we gt to the camp, Trey, Matt, Leah, and I took a few minutes to sit around and think before we headed right back down the mountain with most of the backpacks, the raft, and our weapons. Trey's job while we were at camp was to mainly teach Tyler how to repair John's bandages. Tyler had been smart enough to think about John possibly needing a new bandage while we were gone and wanted to know how to make them stay on John's neck. Trey had also thought to bring a net that he had spent all of our breaks working on, he said he planned to just use it for while we were in the raft. Just to see if any fish had came up into the flood water from the river.  
I was pretty sure that the thought going through all of our minds was that we may never get back, or if we did, there was a chance that the rest of our group wouldn't be there when we did get back. I knew I couldn't say these thoughts outloud, if I got to thinking about the chances of us all dying, I wouldn't want to go to the water. Trey was smart enough to mark our trail down the mountain with slashes in the trees and breaking off branches. We had to pass through the jungle, which was just as creepy as it had been when we first went through it. We took multiple breaks, but only for a minute or two at a time. We kept walking for hours before we stopped to take a break. It seemed that whenever we would stop to take a break, I'd only want water more. When we were walking, I was able to not think about water. But whenever we stopped, water was the only thing I could think of. I knew we needed to keep going, but at the moment I wanted nothing more than to just lay down and go to sleep. I wished I knew we could continue to make the journy tomorrow, but I knew if we all went to sleep, we'd feel even worse tomorrow. So I kept my mouth shut.

We finally reached the water and Trey inflated the raft again. Once the raft was up, we headed out. We were trying to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible in order to get back to the camp tonight, but there didn't seem to be a lot of food around the arena. We had around found enough water for all of our bottles, so once we finally found enough food to fill all of the backpacks we had, we headed back. Somehow the flood had managed to pry all of the fruit off of trees and out of the ground, leaving the food just floating around. So all it took to find it was to be able to spot it in the water. Which did take a while, but it was worth it in the end with the haul of food we ended up with. The trip back to the mountain was long and silent. None of us really talked a lot, just mainly drank water and ate some food. Mathias and Trey took turns looking into the net. Every once in a while we'd find that we caught a fish or two. Trey'd pull them out of the net, examine them to make sure we could eat them, and then toss them into a pack. His fishing skills were impressive to watch, and I found myself paying more attention to him dealing with whatever fish we caught than I was to eating.

When we made it back to the mountain, we quickly deflated the raft and packed everything up to carry up the mountain. Trey quickly found the marks he'd made and we were able to find our way up the mountain a lot easier than our way down the mountain had been. It took a while to get up the mountain, but knowing that we were heading the right way and that we were going to be able to go to sleep soon, made the trip seem sort of easier. It also had to be easier due to the marks that Trey had made. I was sure that had to be included in the factors that made the trip easier than it had been. We all seemed in better moods by the time we got back to camp. Everyone was awake and sitting around a fire that they had made. Tyler and David jumped up quickly and grabbed a couple of the backpacks. They devided out some food for a meal and laid out a couple of fishs for us to cook. I noticed Dianna grabbing something out of their backpack that they had kept to collect whatever supplies they could. She tossed something to Matt. I noticed it was another loaf of bread.

"They sent us some bread a while ago. We decided to wait until you all got back to eat it though. Unless you all didn't show up in a while. Then we were going to eat it." Dianna explained. Mathias nodded and got to work with some of the fruits and vegetables we were able to get from the water. Matt laid out peppers and potatoes next to the bread. Matt gave Dianna the job of smashing up some tomatoes to make a tomato sauce for whatever the meal was going to be. David got the idea to get branches and set fire to one end of them and stake them down into the dirt ground, which created a glow around the campsite. We all sat and talked while Trey and Matt cooked the meal, Matt cooked the vegetables, while Trey cooked the fish. When the food was done, we had a meal of fish sandwiches with tomato sauce, fried potatoes, and grilled peppers. It tasted great, but I thought at that point most anything would taste great. After we were all done eating, we worked out a guard shift and then the rest of us who weren't on guard went to sleep. I wasn't on guard first, so I went to sleep. Sleep was quick to come, which I was glad for. After a long day of walking, I felt as if I could sleep for days.


	12. Chapter 12

Only that didn't happen. I didn't get the chance to sleep for days, because a couple hours after I went to sleep by a frantic Matt. There was mutts, and a lot of them. I sprung out of the bed spot that I was claiming as mine for the night and grabbed my weapon. I grabbed a couple backpacks too. Trey was leading part of our group out of the campsite. Matt, Tyler, David, and John were fighting off some of the mutts currently. I was about to join in on the fight when Trey grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the fight.

"Go with your sister, Rakayah, and Dianna. I'll go back and help out. I'd let you come to help, but your sister would kill me if I did, and I'd rather die from the mutts than have your sister kill me. But do me a favor and take care of all of them. Dianna and Leah think they could survive by themselves in this arena. They couldn't though." Trey explained. He shoved me off toward the direction that Leah, Dianna, and Rakayah had gone. I felt weird being the only guy in the group that was leaving instantly, but I didn't object at all.

I was only about thirty feet away when the explosion happened. The mines must have gone off. I was thrown forward to the ground by the impact. I looked back toward the campsite, there was flames everywhere that our camp had been. There was a couple cannon shots in the distance. Who had died? I was still laying on the ground and the only thing now going through my head wasn't that I needed to get up, but it was thoughts about who had died. Trey ran up coughing.

"Get up... keep going..." He said grabbing my jacket and pulling me to my feet. I didn't ask if the others were alive or not, didn't want to in case the answer was no. We took off running in the direction the girls from our group had gone. When we caught up to them, they had taken cover in a cave. We slipped into the cave.

"What happened?" Leah asked looking outside of the cave.

"Explosion. I ran right before it happened, got a few feet away, the others were right behind me. I didn't see them when I got up, so I took off looking for Seth and you guys." Trey explained. I nodded along with his story.

After a few minutes, there was what sounded like another explosion outside of the cave. We all walked outside and thats when I noticed a hole in the sky. I was sure I was imagining things until hovercrafts starting pouring into the arena. We all took off running, only to stop when we saw Randy up ahead in our pathway. Randy took off running toward us with his spear, when he got close enough, before any of us could hit him, he stabbed Trey with his spear. The spear through Treys chest made a sickening sound. I looked back at him, he looked completely in shock but he was somehow still on his feet. By the time I looked back at Randy, Leah's ax was burried into Randy's neck. We all took off running again, at some point though, Dianna disappeared. Then the next thing I knew a net was around me and I was being lifted into a hovercraft. While I was being dragged up through the air toward the hovercraft, the last thing I heard was a cannon shot. Had Trey died? Surely it had to be him or Randy, one of them had to have died from their wounds that they had just received within seconds of each I got up into the hovercraft, a needle injected something into my arm and the earth was met with total darkness within seconds.

* * *

In my dreams, and nightmares, I relived every moment in the arena. From the time I saw Leah behead the girl from District 3, to Matt saving me from the hornets, to teaming back up with Leah and the other careers. I don't know how long I was under due to the drugs they had given me, but during whatever length of time that was, I went through every single memory I had of the arena.

* * *

When I finally woke up, the first thing I noticed was a bandage on my arm, right where the woman from the Capitol had injected the tracker into my arm. The next things I noticed was the fact that I was in a completely white room, I was also in completely white clothing. I slowly slid out of the bed and walked into the other room. I could tell that I was still in the hovercraft. When I got into the next room, I found a table with a few people sitting at it. One of them stood up and looked at me.

"Hello, Mister Slade. Pleasure to finally talk to you. I'm Henry Lim." He said, smiling at me. I nodded and sat down. Henry looked to be only a few years older than me, but yet the way he talked seemed so much older. He moved a class of water in front of me and I took a couple drinks out of it.

"Where are we?" I asked after I had drank the class of water.

"Somewhere over District 12 right about now. We've been trying to get back to District 13 for a week. But we've been followed." Henry stated. "Some of us were worried after we picked you up that you weren't going to wake up from the medicine."

I nodded and slid down further in my chair. It appeared that I was the only tribute in the hovercraft, I was starting to wonder where the rest of the tributes were when an older man walked into the room. He looked exactly like Henry.

"Son, we're going to be there soon. Get ready for landing." The older man said. "Oh, Seth Slade. You're awake. That's good, we're going to need at least one tribute alive, and I don't know about the rest of the tributes we got out. Anyway we'll be there soon. Get ready." Then he walked out of the room. Henry shook his head.

"My apologies about my father. He sometimes forgets that anyone can have feelings anymore. I'm sure your sister is just fine." Henry said. "In fact this hovercraft was suppose to pick her up and not you. But we only had one shot and I told them to take you if we could. My friend Clyde's hovercraft was nearby so I suspect he attempted to get your sister out."

It was about another ten minutes before we landed in District 13, the District that had been killed off, twice. A few minutes after we landed, Henry led me out of the hovercraft. There was a whole team waiting there to greet us. Henry was pulled off into a sideroom and I was surrounded by people from 13. There was a ton of people asking me how I was, if I needed anything, if I needed a wheelchair. I replied to all of the questions as they came pouring in and then Henry was back.

"Come on. We're getting Mister Slade to his hospital room. I'm sure he'll be fine from there. Thanks." He said, leading me out of the group of people. We took an elevator and when we exited the elevator, we were in the hospital area.

"Only one other tribute has made it here so far. Mathias Xinlim. He got here with severe burns yesterday. You're getting checked into the hospital just to make sure you're fine." Henry informed me. I nodded. I was worried about Trey, Leah, and the rest of the tributes, but I was glad that Matt had made it here. Henry led me to a room with a single bed in it. "You can visit your friend later, Mister Slade. It's important that you rest now."

"Call me Seth." I said sitting down on the bed.

"Okay, Seth. I'll be back to check on you later. Sleep." Henry said.

Then he left the room and closed the curtain behind him. I laid down in the bed. Sleep didn't happen for me, only thoughts about what deaths my friends and sister could have faced by now. I looked over and noticed there was a TV in my room. I turned it onto the Capitol news. The headline was reading 'STILL NO NEWS ON REBELS! TRIBUTE SET FOR 116TH HUNGER GAMES TRIBUTE AND CAPITOL SUPPORTER RANDY ROPE SET FOR TOMORROW NIGHT AT 8PM ON TVS ACROSS PANEM! FORMER 116TH HUNGER GAMES TRIBUTE TREY WOODLEE SAID TO BE IN STABLE CONDITION AT HOSPITAL!' I shut the TV off at that. The Capitol had Trey. That was one out of my friends dead at that.

After a while though, I turned the TV back on. They seemed to be doing some sort of report on Randy and how he died at this point so I decided to listen to the report on what exactly killed him. I wanted to know if they had even tried to save him or just let him die in the arena.

"We all know that Randy Rope, 116th Hunger Games Male Tribute from District 2, died a painful death when he found himself trying to stop rebels Seth and Leah Slade from District 7 from escaping the arena. Leah Slade axed Randy Rope in the throat. Such a painful way to lose such a bright young man." One reporter said. The camera panned out from a picture of Randy and to two news castors.

"Yes, I imagine that Randy would of been the victor of the games if he had lived. Surgeon's tried to save his life. He was in surgery in the most executive Capitol Hospital for twelve hours before surgeons finally called it a lost cause. We send our best wishes to the family and friends of Randy Rope." The second news castor finished saying. They went back to showing Randy's picture for a few more minutes. After a couple commericals, the news castors were back on the TV.

"In other news, we have been updated on the condition of fellow 116th Hunger Games tribute, Trey Woodlee. We have been told that the surgeons were able to fix any damage that was inflicted at the hands of Randy Rope. Doctors expect him to make a full recovery. In fact the President has set up an interview with Trey Woodlee for as soon as Trey feels like it. We send our best wishes for a full recovery to Trey Woodlee." The male news castor said, while grinning like that was the best news he had ever heard in his fancy Capitol life.

"Shame isn't it?" A new voice in the room with me said loudly. "All they seem to want is a 'best recovery' for someone who they put in the arena to kill."  
I turned around on my bed to find a guy about my age standing there. "Ugh, who are you?" I asked slowly, wondering who the newcomer was and what he was doing here.

"Oh, I'm Mohammad Hassan. I was on the hovercraft that brought in Mathias Xinlim." He stated. "I just thought I'd check on the famous Seth Slade and see if you needed anything. I also thought I'd share the news that Mr Lim Senior has gotten in touch with both hovercrafts that are carrying your sister and John Palin. They are both alive. Your sister is even in good health. John Palin could be better, but he is alive anyway."  
I shut off the tv and nodded at Mohammad. "Can you take me to see Matt?" I asked after a few seconds. Mohammad nodded and motioned for me to follow him. He led me down the hallway of hospital rooms and came to a halt outside a room that looked like it was meant for the worst possible cases. There was an actual door to the room even. I opened the door slowly and there sitting in a bed with half of his face covered in bandages sat Matt. He smiled at me.

"Hey. Glad someone else from the Games made it." He said, clicking his tv off with the remote. Mohammad walked down the hall and I shut the door to Matt's room.

"Nice to see you too. Thought you were gone from the explosion." I said, grinning at him. I sat down in a chair that was placed near the bed.

"Heard anything about any of the other tributes?" Matt asked. "Other than Trey and Randy."

"Mohammad said that Leah and John's hovercrafts were making their way here. Haven't heard anything about the rest of the hovercrafts."  
Matt nodded. He switched back on his tv. There was some repeat news report about the Hunger Games. I listened to what they were saying but none of it really settled in. I mean, I had lived most of what they were talking about, so their commentary just wasn't settling in. I found out who had died that last night in the arena. West Jadison and Madison Watson had both been killed in an encounter with the mutts. Randy Rope died from the ax wound.

"So, the latest news that we have been supplied with from the President is a list from the Capitol of how all of the tributes they managed to recue are doing. We are told that Trey Woodlee is still in a stable condition. Dianna Weston is fine. Stephan Locklee, a very young tribute he was, is in fair shape. David Franklin is being attended to in our burn sector of the most executive hospital in the Capitol, but he is expected to make a full and perfect recovery. Josiah Ratlee, Hope Countell, and Taylor Lottlee are also said to be doing perfectly fine." One of the announcers said. So that was who all the Capitol had caught. "The rest of the living tributes are suspected to have been rebels or have been taken hostage by the rebels. If they have just been taken hostage and are not rebels themselves, we wish them good luck for while they are stranded there."

Matt shut off the TV. "That means that all of Leah, John, Tyler, and Rakayah are out there, somewhere, in the hovercrafts trying to get here. Hoping they'll get here before the Capitol gets them. Meanwhile people like Trey and Dianna are in the Capitol. Treys probably half dead, Dianna's probably being tortured. I'd trade places with Dianna. She should be here and not me. I should be the one in the Capitol. I could take Capitol torture better." He said quietly.

"Please. You wouldn't make it two seconds getting tortured in the Capitol." I said jokingly. Matt smiled slightly.

"Want me to turn back on the TV? I was watching it last night and saw something about some sort of rebellion in District 7. That's your home district right?" Matt asked. I nodded and he switched the tv back on.

We sat there watching the news for what must of been hours. We watched multiple news stories on the rebellion in District's 7, 8, 5, 11, and 12. The news castors claimed that if something wasn't done quickly that the rebellion could break out further, which would only result in the death of humanity once again. The only thing that broke our attention away from the tv was when Mohammad walked back in.

"You're both wanted in the landing dock." Mohammad said. "I'm here to push your wheelchair, Mathias. Or at least escort you both there."

Mohammad rolled in a wheelchair, which, after a few minutes of trying to get Matt into it without bothering his burns, had Matt sitting in it. I pushed Matt's wheelchair while Mohammad led us down to the elevator and then into the landing dock. There was a couple new hovercrafts in the dock. I saw a guy in a business suit with his hair slicked back talking to a few people. Matt and I stood there waiting for a while before we saw Leah and John. They had both made it to District 13. John looked to be in about as bad of shape as Matt, with bandages covering parts of his arms and neck. All four of us had made it out in one piece though, which was what mainly mattered. John and Leah both walked over to where Matt, Mohammad, and I were all standing.

"I'll be back in the hospital, check back in with me to let me know that Matt's back." Mohammad said, walking off.

"You're both alive. Any word on the others?" Leah asked after a few seconds. I looked at Matt. It seemed weird to be the breakers of bad news that Trey and Dianna were being held hostage in the Capitol and that the rest of the tributes hadn't made it back by now and may never make it back.

"Ugh, no. You two might want to see the constant Capitol news programs." Matt said. We all headed back inside the District 13 buildings. We quickly made our way into the hospital wing. I nodded at Mohammad as we walked by him and he returned the nod. We made our way into Matt's room, Matt stayed in the wheelchair, while I sat back down in the chair. We left the best seat in the house for John and Leah to both sit on, the bed. Matt switched on the TV and brought it to a channel about news on the rebels and the rescue of Trey Woodlee and Dianna Weston. We all watched in silence as they repeated what Matt and I had heard earlier. I was glad that 13 wasn't hiding us from the truth of what was going on out there like the Capitol had been. How could the Capitol of hid the District's from the fact that District 13 was still alive. I only really started paying attention to the TV when they came out with a new detail.

"The President has made claims that Trey Woodlee will be making an interview within the next couple days." One of the announcers said with a huge smile on his face. I wasn't a doctor, but Trey had been burnt by the explosion and then was speared, he couldn't be ready for an interview yet. They were pushing him out in the public for an interview before he was probably even ready to walk around. I shook my head and walked out of the room.

I wandered around District 13 for a while, feeling as trapped as I had felt in the Games. There was no win to this. I probably would have been more free if I had just won the games, or died in them. I picked a random room that had a few chairs in it and sat down in the room. I couldn't keep walking all over 13 for the rest of the day, or night. I had lost track of time in the time that we had been underground. I felt lost, but in more ways than just not knowing where I was. Trey was in the Capitol, doing who knows what. He could be convinced that we all were the reason he was speared. What if he thought of us as the enemy. What if he had always thought of us as the enemy. I quickly shoved the thought out of my mind, there was no way Trey would've went about being our ally if he had always pictured us as the enemy, he would've been with Randy if that were the case. He wouldn't of met up with people on the rooftop. He wouldn't of posed as a friend of ours. Or would he of? What if it was just a part in his plan to get us all to trust him? I stood up and looked around. The Capitol was starting to influence my thoughts. I couldn't let the Capitol make me think that a friend of mine had really just been an enemy faking being my friend. I walked out of the room and slammed the door behind me. I started running down the hall and turned the corner, where I about ran into a familiar face. Josh Woodlee, Treys older brother. Also the victor of the Games who had killed my brother, Luca. I stood there staring at him for a minute, how was I suppose to react to meeting the man who killed my own brother?

"Oh, hello. Seth Slade, right?" Josh asked, smiling at me. I nodded.

"Yeah, you should recognize the last name Slade, huh?" I replied. Josh's smile disappeared from his face.

"Ah yes, Luca. I'm guessing he was your brother. I'm sorry about that. I wanted to go back home to my family. To my younger brother, Trey. You know Trey well don't you?" Josh stated. "He came to me before the Games, told me he wanted you and your sister as his allies, that he didn't want to be in the Career Pack. I convinced him to play like he was in the Career Pack until later in the games. Of course, I was in on this plan to rescue you all the entire time."

"Why didn't you get Trey out first then? Why didn't you order them to make sure they had Trey in one of their hovercrafts before any others were rescued?" I questioned him. I didn't want to believe that he was the one behind my rescue from the Arena.

"I told them to rescue who they thought was the most important. Turns out there was something that the Games' audience found interesting about you and your sister, so they focused on saving you two first. And as you see, we were successful in getting you two out. See, we were thinking that you two might be our perfect actors for this rebellion we're planning. If the audience's around Panem see that you two are your same old selves and that you side with us, they might just side with us too." He explained. I shook my head.

"Should've saved your brother. I'm definitely not being your puppet. Not like Trey's probably been for his entire life." I stated, before walking down the hall.

"In case you're wondering, my brother also found something interesting in both of you. Although, I don't know what that interesting fact is at all." Josh called after me. I rounded a corner and headed to an elevator, planning on going back to the hospital section of 13. When I reached the hospital section, I walked straight to the room in the hospital I had been given and laid down. I planned on sleeping for as long as I could, which hopefully would be days, if not weeks.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke up the next morning in my hospital room. I let out a groan, realizing that unlike my wishes, I hadn't slept for days or weeks, not that I had been really expecting to. Would've been nice to do that though. I laid there in my bed for as long as I could. Once I had gotten tired of laying, I sat up and turned on the TV. I switched it to a channel with the news on and just listened. They were having some sort of conversation about who they thought would've won the games if the rebels had not interfered. I sat through about an hour of bets before I switched to another channel. On the channel I switched to, they were talking about an apparent interview they had the chance to get in Treys Capitol hospital room with him. They started playing the footage from the interview, so I started listening closer to the footage.

"So, have you heard that most of your allies are suspected to be rebels, Mr Woodlee?" An interviewer asked.

"I've heard that. But I refuse to believe that they are rebels. Can't you tell they've been taken? Look at Seth's face in the tapes from the Games when he's being ripped up into that hovercraft! He looks scared! Not happy! Scared." Trey replied.

"Okay, I believe you, Mr Woodlee. But about your alliance with Mr Slade, can you explain to the viewers at home your thoughts on whatever plans Mr Slade seemed to have about the Games?" The interviewer pressed on. Trey shook his head and sighed.

"Seth's plans were never to get me speared. Or to get ripped up by the rebels. He wanted a fair Games. I could even tell that he didn't think he was going to win. He was just hoping that either him or his sister won for his family's sake." Trey stated. "Seth didn't want his parents to lose anymore of their children. Not after their oldest son Luca's death. He died in the Games. Two more of their children being reaped for the Games had to be hell for them to live with. I can remember finding out that my brother Joshua Woodlee was going to be in the Games. I was a wreck. I was sure he wasn't going to be coming home after that. But I can't imagine a few years later having two more members heading to the same thing that killed the first family member."

"Mr Woodlee, how did your alliance come around with the Slades? You were already in the Career Pack with Leah Slade, but how did Seth come into the alliance? Why did you choose to bring him into the alliance?" The interviewer asked.

"People don't credit Seth enough, you know. He's great when it comes to fighting. I wanted him as an ally since the first day of training, but then when he didn't make the Career Pack, I figured I'd never get the chance to become his ally. Then his sister, Leah, made the Career Pack. I figured at least I'd be able to team up with a Slade at that point. They're both very skilled in fighting. Especially with axes, which makes sense due to them being from District 7." Trey said to the interviewer. "I, personally, can't wait until they are rescued from the rebels. They belong here in the Capitol or back in District 7 with their family."

"Where are you planning on heading after this whole issue is resolved?" A nice voice asked from off camera.

"I plan on heading back to District 4, my home. I feel like District 4 will always be my home, so that's where I'm heading after this all. Back to my family and friends. Maybe I'll even meet up with the Slade's one day. Whether in 4, or 7, or the Capitol." Trey answered with what seemed to me like an honest answer. He really seemed to see himself going back to District 4 after this all. "Can you explain your relationship with the Slade's a little more, Mr Woodlee? I think the audience has different views on your relationship with them." The interivew stated. I hadn't even known that any audience out there had questioned any relationship between any of the tributes. We had been put in the arena to kill each other.

"My relationship with the Slade's? Interesting honestly. Seth's like a little brother to me, even though we didn't get the chance to speak a lot. Whereas, I practically lived with Leah for all of the Games. I knew her a lot better than I knew Seth. They were like my friends back at home, really. I even had a friend from 4 in the Games with me, Hope Countell. I know she's here in the Capitol now, I haven't gotten the chance to talk to her. But I honestly felt like the Slade's were closer. I tried to protect them as much as I could. I was close to them." Trey explained. Next thing I knew my curtain flew open and Leah walked in. Leah snapped off my TV.

"What an idiot." Leah said. I looked up at her with a questioning look.

"'Cuse me, but what'd I miss? I wasn't with you all for most of the Games, so I must have missed the latest drama going on in your life, sis." I said sarcastically. Leah turned around and glared at me. I offered a smile.

"He made us sound weak, Seth!" Leah snapped. "He acted like he saved our lives and like he protected us 24/7. He didn't do shit like that at all. He was on his high horse all the time."

"Okay, so I know our family has bad memory and all, but do you not remember him saving my life? And instead just tossing me into the river?" I asked quietly.

"Okay, so he cares about you. Still doesn't mean he wasn't too snobby to actually give a fuck." She said. "He was more worried about all of the Capitol girls falling all over him after he won the games. He was planning his vacation through the District's, practically."

"I didn't get that feeling from him at all, sis.." I said, before I was cut off.

"He was." Leah stated.

"Have I missed something?" I asked. "Do I need to, like, find a tape from the Games and watch it all?" I was joking about that. I didn't want to watch all of those people getting killed all over again.

"Shut up, kid." Leah muttered. "You're just being yourself, Trey's being an idiot, simple as that." I nodded, figuring it was better to just go along with it. Leah walked out of my room without another word, which left me even more confused than I had been.

After a while, I got up and walked out of the Hospital. Mohammad informed me about lunch being soon and I promised him I'd be back before then. I didn't know where I was heading, but I stayed near the hospital. I ended up sitting in the hallway for a while before I headed back. When I got back to my room, they had just dropped off the lunch of what appeared to be a soggy fish soup with a slice of bread. I forced down the slimy soup and turned back on my TV. They were replaying Trey's interview from earlier again on that channel. I switched to a different channel since I was sure that I had heard all there was to hear in Treys interview. On the channel I had switched to they were showing highlights from the Games. I kept watching the highlights for a few minutes, then I realized that they were on the part right before Mathias had gotten stabbed by Rakayah. I wondered briefly about what was going on in the District's. Were they siding with the people who had kept them in the dark for all these years or were they siding with District 13? I didn't spend much time thinking about it. Instead I switched completely off of the Games and went to the repeat of Treys interview. After a few minutes, Matt rolled himself into my room.

"They're forcing me to stay in the wheelchair." He complained as soon as he was in the door. I laughed and shook my head.

"Have you see the interview with Trey from his hospital room?" I asked. Matt nodded and rolled over to turn off my TV.

"Yeah, it sucks. Do you think the Capitol was forcing him to say those answers?" He asked. I shrugged. I didn't know if the Capitol had scripted it or not.

"Maybe. Depends on which answers you're talking about. Leah freaked out about his answers on me and her. She went off saying that he never cared about us all and that he just cared about all of the girls in the Capitol falling over him or something." I told Mathias. "There's no telling what that all was about though."

Matt nodded. We sat in silence for a few minutes just looking around the room. I didn't know what else to say about Treys interview or Leah's rant. None of it had really made sense to me anyway, so I just sat there without bothering to try to make sense of it all with Matt. He looked like he didn't have any clue about that either, so I just left the subject alone. After a while Mohammad walked in and looked at us both.

"More hovercrafts are heading here. We can't tell if they're our hovercrafts or if they are Capitol hovercrafts. We can't reach them on the radio's, so more than likely they're some of the Capitol's. We will let them land in the landing dock, but none of you will be invited to the area, just in case. Armed guards will be prepared to take out any Capitol people who may be on the hovercraft." Mohammad told us. I nodded. "Henry might even have you all moved into a more secure room. We don't know what the Capitol has planned, we only know that they will aim for you all. Since they have had announcers state that they think you all are being held here hostage. It's likely they want to return you all to the Capitol to use you all with the audiences to get more of a Capitol base army against us."

We both nodded and Mohammad walked out of the room. Leah and John walked in minutes later and sat down on the bed with me.

"Henry told us to head here so that they could move us quicker." Leah said. We went back to being silent. It seemed like none of us even had a single comment to tell anyone else, and when Henry showed up. He led us all to a room down a lot of floors. We all sat in the room while Henry tried to fill us in on what was going on.

"I'm sure Mohammad told you that we aren't sure whether or not they are our hovercrafts or whether they are Capitol hovercrafts. It is possible that the Trey interview today was a plan to get us all distracted. It's also possible that Trey is fully working with the Capitol and that he doesn't want to work with us. Anything is a possibility at this point, remember that. He could've been reading from a script today. Or he could've meant everything that he said. We are not Capitol experts when it comes to their plan. I've personally lived here in District 13 for most of my life, I don't remember living in another District. Everybody understand?" Henry stated. We all nodded. "Okay then. See, we use to make the Capitol Hovercrafts. Their designs are almost exactly like ours. Just slightly different, they show up on our radar the exact same, so right now we can not tell whether or not they are our hovercrafts. I will try to explain later, but for now I have to go down to the landing dock." He stood up and left the room. I looked around at Leah, Matt, and John.

At that moment, I really wished that Trey had made it out of the arena with us all. He was just the natural leader of the alliance we all had in the arena, he'd be a better leader in one of these situations that any of the rest of us would be. "So, what do we do now?" Matt asked. I looked around the room, other than the few chairs we were sitting in there was a bed, a couch, and a TV. Nothing else. I stood up and walked over to the couch. I flipped on the tv before sitting down on the couch. The news channels coming from the Capitol were the easiest channels to find. I stared at the tv not attempting to make any sense of the words. I could hear John, Leah, and Matt all in some sort of conversation, but I didn't try to join in on the conversation. I watched as the news channel talked briefly about what was going on in the District's. I watched expressionless as they showed Distrit 7 in a rebellion against the peacekeepers. _'All of the animal's inside these people have been released by the rebellion which was started by officials hidden here in the Capitol. We will be updating you with these reports.'_ I stood up and walked toward the door, I looked over at Matt, Leah, and John as I walked.

"I can't stay locked up here all day." I mumbled as I walked out of the room. I was walking down toward the landing dock when I heard the first bomb go off. That's the second I realized I shouldn't of left the safe room, but I guessed that it was too late to chance that decision. I took off running toward the landing dock to see if I could be of any help there. A room I ran into was filled with smoke, that's when I felt a hand slide around my throat. Within a few seconds, I couldn't think straight due to lack of air. Everything went black right as I was being pulled onto a hovercraft. Yeah., running away from that safe room definitely wasn't the best idea.


	14. Chapter 14

I finally woke up in a different hospital room. It took me a few minutes to realize where I was. When I finally realized where I, indeed, was, I about jumped out of the bed. I only stopped that plan when I looked to my side and saw a ton of IV's hooked up to me. How long that they kept me out cold? What did the Capitol want with me? Other than just to have me as another hostage. I slowly sat up to avoid pulling out any of the IV's. I looked around me. There was a curtain blocking off half of the room. There was no TV in the small split off room. Just machines, and my bed. The curtain in the middle of the room opened after a second to reveal Trey standing there grinning.

"Welcome to the Capitol, District 7 Male Tribute Seth Slade." He muttered walking toward my bed as best as he could.

"They got you on drugs huh? Matt and John are too, but not strong ones. Matt's in a wheelchair." I explained. Trey shook his head.

"Don't talk about them all around here. Get you killed if they think you're on the rebels side. I saw one of the avoxes from the training center get hauled off for death after wondering about you all. They didn't kill me because they needed me to be a distraction yesterday." He stated, shrugging. I nodded and looked around the room again. Trey quickly shrank back behind the curtain as the door to my room opened slowly.

"Mr Slade. You're awake." A voice said from the doorway. I looked up to see a guy who couldn't be but six years older than me standing in the doorway. "I'll let the doctors know. They'll probably take you off of the IV's."

After that he walked out of the room. Within an hour, I was free from all of the IV wires and machines and able to walk around the hospital. I wasn't sure where I was heading but I didn't mind walking around the Capitol Hospital. It seemed nicer than the District 13 one had. Of course, the District 13 hospital had been underground. I only stopped when I saw a person who looked very familiar from the Games.

"Hey, Slade boy, right?" Hope Countell asked.

"Yeah, Seth Slade. And you're Hope Countell, right?" I asked. She nodded. I smirked, I had found another tribute who I had never talked to and yet didn't seem to mind talking to me at all in the middle of the Capitol hospital.

"Have you seen the quarters around the hospital? All patients are allowed to go there." Hope said. She grabbed my hand and halfway dragged me down the hallway. Once we got to a door, she shoved the door open and we walked outside. I looked around the outside area, it halfway looked like the area around the cornucopia in the Arena. Had they place it like this to just remind us of that time in the Games? Surely they wouldn't of redone the whole area just for that.

"So, how've you been since the Games?" I asked slowly, looking at her.

"Other than being trapped here? Oh, perfectly fine. Just been watching the Capitol bombings in all of the District's that have rebellions going on. Including your district and my district." Hope stated, with a glare on her face. She slightly reminded me of Leah in a way. Maybe slightly softer in her attitude, but it seemed like her attitude also had some of the same aspects as Leah's did.

"Oh, I wasn't aware of the bombings." I said quietly.

"Of course you weren't. The Capitol nor District 13 are going to want their star players knowing that their Districts are being targetted by the Capitol." Hope said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I nodded.

"You know what would be awesome? Is if someone, out of me, you, Dianna, or Trey, just told the citizens of all of the District's in one of those interviews!" Hope halfway shouted. "I haven't been told if I'll be getting an interview or not." I informed her.

"Oh trust me. You will. The Capitol can't wait to rub the fact that you're here in your sister's face. They'll give you an interview within a few days." Hope said, nodding. "You should totally let out the news that it's the Capitol bombing everywhere they can. Of course there is probably rebel stations set up in most District's."

"How'd you find out all of this?" I asked.

"It's easy. I just went into this room one night, and found files on all of this." Hope stated. I nodded, deciding to just go along with it. Even though I never planned on using any of what she told me in an interview. I looked back at the hospital once I heard the door to the outside open and close. Trey and Dianna were both standing there. I looked at them both for the first time really since the Arena. Sure, I had seen Trey right after I woke up and on the TV, but it wasn't really the same as seeing him in person or right now since I had still be sort of out of it when I first woke up. They both looked like they had aged since the Arena. I wondered if I looked like I'd aged too. After I took in the fact that they looked older, I looked around.

"Hi." I said after a few minutes.

"Hey." They both said at the same time.

"Well, hello to you both too." Hope said walking past us all and back into the hospital.

"Ignore her, they've gotten her on drugs since the Arena. Apparently it took a toll on her mind. As if she needed anymore mind problems." Trey said with a shrug. I nodded. So that's why Hope was so up about the bombings, they had her on drugs. None of it was real. They weren't bombing seven and four as I was standing here doing nothing at all but enjoying the Capitol's grounds. But for some reason, I couldn't shake the idea that my friends and family were being bombed by the Capitol right then. And here I was standing here in the Capitol's own place while my family and friends could be getting bombed.

"So, what do you all know about the rebel force?" I asked Trey and Dianna.

"I talked to one of the higher-up's here in the Capitol before my interview just to see if there was anything I needed to know. He told me that the rebel force is acting a lot stupider than what they are. I mean they managed to get half of us out and now they're running their operation like they're idiots. It's all an act." Trey stated.

"Yeah, they seemed sort of clueless to me while I was there." I replied.

"All an act. They've been running some ad's here. Mainly some guys named Henry and Clyde. They're really smart. Clyde apparently use to work for the Capitol even, according to the few people I've talked to here." Dianna said. Trey nodded in agreement. The guy who had been the one to alert the doctors to me being awake walked out of the hospital.

"Carter, nice to see you again." Trey said with a smirk on his face.

"Shut up, Woodlee." The guy, Carter, replied. "Seth, you're wanted inside for an interview."

I nodded and followed Carter inside. He led me to a room that had a few chairs. It actually slightly reminded me of the safe room that District 13 had placed us all in, except there was no bed, tv, or couch in it. Just chairs. I sat down in one of them. There was a few interviewers placed in the other chairs. Carter stood against the far wall. One of the interviewers clicked on a TV.

"Airing live in, 3... 2... 1..." An interviewer quietly said.

"Seth Slade, welcome back to the Capitol. I trust that you're glad to be back here?" An interviewer asked. I nodded before realizing they wanted an actual answer.

"Yeah, I've missed this place. Everythings so different here. So it's nice to be back." I replied. "Can you tell us all anything about what it was like to be held hostage by the rebels?" Someone in the small crowd asked.

"Sure. It wasn't like I was being held in a dungeon. I was getting three meals a day, all of that. They weren't torturing me or anything. They just had me there for their own purpose. Not to save me, because what would I need saving from?" I replied.

"Can you describe the last day in the Arena to us?"

"From what I remember, since I haven't watched any of the tapes since the Games, Leah, Trey, Matt, and I had gone to find food. If we hadn't of gone, we all would of starved within a few days. It was our only choice, you know?"

"Now, Seth. I asked Trey Woodlee this same question in his interview, can you explain your alliance with Trey and your sister?" "Ugh, sure. Well, my sister's my sister. So obviously I was hoping to team up with her eventually. I wanted one of us two to make it back home, that's all I could think about while in the Arena. I knew there was more skilled people in there with us, but I didn't want my parents to lose us both. And well, Trey, we had trained briefly together at the same stations, and then teaming up with him was just easy." I explained, trying to remember as much as I could from Treys own interview to sort of at least match stories. The interviewers all nodded.

"Any comments about the war, Seth?" An interviewer asked. I tried to think of some nice comment about how we all needed to stop this war before it really started. But all I could think about was what Hope had said.

"If anyone in the District's thinks this war is the rebel's faught. They're wrong. The Capitol is the one bombing all of you." I quickly said. All of the interviewers and hospital help in the room sat there silent. Then after a few seconds everything started happening at once, everyone seemed to realize that that bit of info had gotten out on the TV's and they all sprung into action. Someone stuck a needle into my arm and in the process of a couple security guards beating the living daylights out of me, someone remembered to turn off the camera. After a few minutes of it all, I blacked out. I silently wished right before I went under that I'd just die already. I'd done all that I could see the war gaining from me, so why should I still be around? Oh right, because that'd be too fair for fate to do to me. And fate just had to be unfair for me.

* * *

I woke up after who knows how long and looked around the room. I was in a different room now. A room that looked more secured than the room that I had been in. There was a security locked door with a key pad on it and different walling. What had I even done to end up in here? What could I have done that could of pissed off the Capitol so much to lock me up in here? There wasn't even a TV in this room. I felt horrible. I didn't know exactly what the security guards had even injected me with to knock me out, but it had to have been powerful, if not damaging for good. I laid my ead back against the pillow on the bed. The pillow felt extremely comfortable compared to nothing in the Arena and the hard pillows from District 13. I guess they let us patients have actual Capitol pillows. I heard a knock on the door and sat up slightly.

"Come in." I attempted to say, although it didn't come out very loud or clear at all. The door opened and Trey walked in. I grinned and nodded at him. He just shook his head in response though. I wondered how badly the Capitol had taken my announcement.

"Are you insane?" Trey asked, looking at me. I shrugged.

"Jury is still out on that one." I said, smirking. I started laughing right after I said that.

"How drugged are you? God, can't have a normal decent conversation?" Trey snapped at me.

"What's wrong with you?" I questioned.

"Nothing. Really. Just District 13 commericals and you saying that. I thought they were going to kill you. And the rebels aren't helping themselves any. I mean they are, they're practically shoving some fake, or at least fake when we were all in the Arena, couple down everyone's throats. But that's just going to cause the Capitol to do some smart ass commerical's back or something." Trey explained, looking over at me. I nodded.

"Was it that bad? I mean I just said something. How bad could they of taken that?" I asked.

"Really bad. When the security guards carted you off, I thought you were gone for good. I was really wondering how I was going explain your death to everyone. I mean most of them would've seen what happened in the interview, but I still would've had to break the news to them." Trey said, looking around. I nodded slowly. Sure, whatever statement I had made probably pissed off everyone. Big deal. I just wanted to get back to 13. Or at least get a room that has a TV in it again, that'd be nice. So at least then I could know what Trey was even talking about when he mentioned the commericals that 13 had sent out over the air-waves. I didn't have any clue what had gone on since I had left there, and I really wanted to know now. A security guard tapped on the door and then opened it.

"I'll be back later." Trey said quietly before walking out of the room. The security guard walked in with a needle and injected the contents of the needle into my arm. He walked out afterwards without saying a word. Within a few minutes, I was back feeling tired. I slipped back into the darkness of my own mind within a few minutes.

Within what I figured to be the next two weeks, I would wake up at times, but it wouldn't last. Within an hour of me being awake, a nurse or a security guard would come into the room and inject me with whatever drug they were using to keep me under. Usually while I was awake I'd see someone who I knew was back in District 13. Like Matt, or my sister, or John. I'd believe that they were real, until someone would come in to drug me again. Then one day, I woke up to find Trey standing in my room in a vest that appeared to be a bullet proof one that I'd seen a few peacekeepers wearing. He smiled at me after a few minutes of me looking at him.

"We're getting out of here." He said. Everything was still a little hazy from me having just woken up from the drug-induced sleep. I thought it was just another figure of my imagination, so I shut my eyes again. Soon someone would be back in here to give me more drugs. I thought to myself. Only I opened my eyes after about ten minutes, and there stood Trey still with an annoyed look on his face. He raised an eyebrow right before I shut my eyes again. He had to be one of the most stubborn figures of my imagination apparently.

"Dude, did you not hear what I said? We're getting out of here. We're going to District 4, my home, on some sort of mission from the Capitol. We're going with a couple of the guys who work here, and a few other of the tributes the Capitol got out of the Arena." Trey said a little loud. I opened my eyes and sat up.

"You better not be another fucking figure of my mind, dude. Cause I swear this may be the best news my imagination's have brought me." I said getting up out of my bed. Trey laughed slightly. He led me out of the hospital room and down a hallway. Once we were outside of the hospital, he picked up his speed.

"We've got to hurry. We're all leaving as soon as we all get suited up. They're trusting that you can use a gun with enough skill to be trusted out there in 4. I told them you'd be able to figure out how to use a gun quick enough." Trey explained. I nodded and hurried up to catch back up with Trey.

Once we reached a room at the end of this long hallway, Trey turned into it and smirked at everyone in the room. In the room stood Carter, Dianna, Josiah, and David, along with a few other members of what must of been the peacekeeping force in the Capitol. The rest of us all looked stronger than the peacekeepers did, so I suspected that there wasn't much need for a good force of peacekeepers in the Capitol. I could only bet that they'd be bringing in a ton more peacekeepers within the next few weeks due to the rebel's though. Carter tossed me an outfit like the rest of the team was wearing and I quickly changed into it.

"Team, the plan is for us to go to 4 to secure the Capitol force there. There has been out-breaks of rebellions in District 4, which is a big problem, since the sea food's from there." One of the peacekeepers said loudly. "Let's head out."

We all followed the peacekeepers out of the room and to an elevator. Once we were all piled onto the elevator, a peacekeeper typed in a code on a keypad that was attached to the wall. The elevator took off at a speed faster than any elevator I'd been in before, which hadn't been many elevators. Within seconds, we walked off of the elevator and onto a landing zone for the hovercrafts. We were all escorted onto the hovercraft where more peacekeepers were all standing around. We all sat down in a seat and after a while, the hovercraft apparently took off. We were on our way to Trey Woodlee's home, District 4.


	15. Chapter 15

Getting to District 4 took a lot less time than I expected it to take. The landing was a bit rough but after we were out of the hovercraft, I got my first look at the ocean that Trey had grown up living around. District 4 was a ton better than what I had expected. It looked untouched by bombs though, so I started questioning my statement that I had made due to Hope Countell telling me that she had read about the bombings. Or had District 4 just had enough time to recover from the bombings? I wasn't sure, and I sure wasn't about to ask anyone here about it. I still didn't feel safe after my statement, so I definitely wasn't about to risk my life again.

We were led to District 4's town square, and led into a meeting room. We all sat down and listened as a peacekeeper that had been in 4 for a while now spoke about what was going on. According to him they weren't wanting to use lethal force unless no other option is available. Trey looked to be torn about the whole lethal force even if it came down to that. I quickly remembered that he had to know at least 80% of District 4. Of course he'd be against killing any of them. Just like I'd be if we were in District 7. I quickly wondered if the Capitol had sent us to 4 just for the pleasure of seeing Trey possibly have to kill one of his former neighbors. Surely they wouldn't do that to a former tribute. Especially with the possibility of a Camera Crew getting here any day now to film our trip in District 4. I looked back to the peacekeeper who had been talking in time to hear his closing line.

"Do not do anything stupid. If you want to go down to the ocean, feel free to. Go for a swim even. But do not think you're completely safe. There are rebel's here who won't hesitate to kill you, even if we all hesitate to kill them." he explained before walking out of the room. I laughed under my breath. As if they had been hesitating on killing the rebel's. The rebel's were probably hesitating more than the Capitol had been.

We had all been assigned houses in District 4's victor villiage, even Trey who could of just went back to living with his family. I guess they wanted to give him the full Victor treatment, show him what he would have had if he had won instead of the rebel's interrupting the Games. Some peacekeepers split us all up into teams. Carter, Trey, and I were suppose to patrol the city, looking for rebel camp-sites and rebel's in general. Carter would ask me if I recognized anyone every once in a while, I'd tell him no. Which was true for the first while, until I saw Henry and some other people from District 13, then I lied to Carter. I knew all of the rebel's there had to have seen me. Had to of known that the Capitol was sending me there. Were they there specifically for me? Were they going to take me back to 13? Or were they going to act as if they didn't recognize me? I saw that the rebel's had set up camp in some of the District 4 resident's houses. Carter split off from Trey and I to go and report that I hadn't recognized anyone yet. Trey led me down a side street and stopped after a few steps down the street. He cursed under his breath.

"They've set up in my family's house." Trey quietly explained before heading down the street. I hurried to catch up with him. I had just reached the house two houses from his family's house when he banged on the front door. After a few minutes, a woman who looked like Trey in a few ways opened the door. After a few seconds, she hugged Trey tightly. I continued walking toward the house.

"Mom, this is Seth Slade." Trey said pointing to me.

"Ah, the boy who caused all the commotion." His mom said, smiling at me. I returned the smile.

"Why are the rebel's in our house?" Trey asked.

"A few of the tributes needed a place to stay. A few of your former allies in the Arena. I said that they and a few of the officials could stay here." His mom explained. Trey walked past her into the house. I heard him stop on the wood floor after a few seconds of walking.

"What are you doing here in my house?" I heard him ask. I walked toward the door. That's when I saw exactly who Trey's family's guests were.

"Checking out the sights of District 4, of course. Just like any other day. Not like there's about to be a war or anything. Just here on vacation, Trey." My sister said, shrugging and smirking at Trey. "Heard that some great tribute in the 116th Games lived here. Don't see what all the fuss was about though."

"Get out of my house." Trey snapped. "Out. Now. All of you."

"No can do, Mr Woodlee." Clyde said walking down the stairs of the house. "We're here for a while. Just long enough to take control of 4 from you and your Capitol friends. Then we'll all be on our way."

"You all being here could get my family killed!" Trey shouted.

"As if they weren't planning on killing most of the tributes family's anyway." Leah said shrugging again. I walked on into the house with Ms Woodlee following me. Everyone looked up from their seats around the room. Leah, Clyde, Matt, and Rakayah were all in the room, not to mention who knew how many other people were around here.

"What are you doing here?" Leah asked, looking at me.

"Same reason you are, I guess." I replied.

"I thought at least in the Capitol you'd be safe." Leah snapped.

"Well, they sent me here. So I guess you thought wrong." I said, shrugging. "And you, you let him come?" Leah asked, looking over at Trey. Trey shrugged.

"I don't see the big deal, he can take care of himself. Plus he's my age, he's as safe here as I am." Trey stated, looking around the room. Matt stood up from the couch and walked toward us all.

"Seth. Trey." He said nodding at us. I nodded back. "I'll be outside." He added, looking at Leah. He walked past us all and opened the door. Once he was outside, Leah looked back at us all. Trey coughed and looked around.

"I'm gonna go back and find Dianna. When I get back I expect all of you 13 citizen's to be gone." Trey stated walking out of the house.

I stood for a second in the house before walking out. I made sure to memorize where the house was in case I needed to find my own way back to it. I walked back toward the beach, passing a couple makeshift hospital's on the way. When I finally reached the beach, I walked down and sat close to the water. It felt like I was almost back in the Arena, being near water again. The arena and now District 4 had been a couple of the only times I'd be near actual bodies of water. We'd learned in school that each District had it's own job to do, but no one bothered to fill us all in on what Victor's did or what it was actually like in the other District's. Would I be treated like an actual Victor if I returned to District 7 after this all was over? Would I be expected to just go back to school life and ended up as a lumber jack or some other job in 7? What would people like Matt and Trey end up doing? Trey would be doing something in the water, perhaps just being something as simple as a fisher. But what about Matt? I wasn't even sure what they did to the gem's and all in District 1. Most of their stuff just went to the Capitol, so obviously his job, whatever it'd be, would be important to the actual Capitol.

I looked out at the ocean, it was a shade of blue which the river in the Arena hadn't been. I thought that perhaps the different shade just meant that it'd be colder than the river, but what if it was just a different color because of some unknown reason? I'd have to question Trey about it, since he was likely to know more about water than I would. District 7 certainly didn't have it the worst out of all of the District's, because there was always trees to chop down, I'd say District 12 had it the worst, with all of the mining they had to do. But it was obviously that District's like 4 might of had it better than 7 did. I missed 7 more than anything now that I'd started thinking about it. I wondered if Leah was thinking the same stuff I was. Would she even return to 7 after everything? Would she move to some District like 13? Or 1? Matt and Leah had seemed closer than they did when I left 13, had they gotten together? Would they both be going back to the same District together when everything was over? Or were they just friends? I could guess Trey's destination better than I could my sisters. I couldn't see why he'd abandon a District like 4. There was a ton to do in my opinion. There was water to swim in. Never a lack of fish to catch. And then the sand to lay in. Since I thought about the sand, I placed my hand down onto it. It was grainy and warm. The sun must of warmed it through the day. I laid back onto the sand and closed my eyes. It was easy to picture living here for a while, although I knew I would have to go back to 7 at some point in my life. I couldn't just not go back to visit my family at some point. Even if Leah wasn't think about going back to our home, I was going to.

How quickly had my life changed? I could think back to days of going to school like any other kid in 7, sitting in the classroom, waiting for the time to pass by and let me go back to my house. Once I did get out of school, I'd run back to my family's house, possibly catch Adam, Dad, or Jacob before they had to head back out to their jobs. Then I'd spend a while outside with some of my closest friends, just wasting time. Late at night, I'd finally go back into the house. I'd have already had dinner with some friends, but I'd eat again with all of my family once they all got back. I couldn't picture going back to doing that now. Thing's had changed for good when Luca died, but thing's would be even more different now. We wouldn't really be a family anymore. I doubt that any of my family would understand what Leah and I went through in the arena. Would they even forgive us for killing anyone? It felt like years since I had been in District 7 at home, and yet I could remember every detail. From going to the market with Luca years ago. To spending time at the market doing the job Luca had done with buying food at least once every week with Leah, or Jacob. Adam had gone from spending all of his time at home to either being at work, which he shouldn't of been doing yet, or out with friends. Spending time with my brothers and father had been my favorite thing to do, then when Luca went into the games and didn't come back out of the games, spending time with them became even more important.

I sat up quickly and grabbed my gun when I heard footsteps come off of the concrete up behind me. I spun around and aimed the gun, until I saw who was looking at me. Trey had surprisingly found me at the beach. He nodded at me and then walked over and sat down next to me. He stared out at the ocean for a long time. I looked over at him.

"Your sister is honestly frustrating. She'll be the death of me, I swear." Trey said laughing slightly. I let out a laugh and shook my head. It was easy being around Trey, almost like he was a lifelong friend of mine that I had known since I was born or something. I almost even considered him like my brother.

"I use to think the same thing. Still do at times." I replied, smiling over at him. "So, what was life like here anyway growing up? I mean it couldn't of just been all, 'oh let's just go and swim all day long', so tell me. What'd you spend your time doing?"

Trey appeared lost in his thoughts for a few minutes before looking back over at me. "Well, I swam, but I also spent most of my time fishing. There was also school and then just plain family time." He replied, shrugging. He looked out into the water like there was some joke written on it. I figured he must of spent a lot of time out in the very ocean I was looking at and who knows how many stories he had gained from the ocean.

"There was this one time when I went out there with my dad, brothers, and uncle. They all wanted to teach me how to fish perfectly. Of course, I was like six at that point. My mom wouldn't let them teach me really until then. Sure we had fun fishing in some little ponds blocked off from the rest of the ocean by sand, but no fishing out on a boat until I was six. My dad was intent on staying where he could still barely see the beach in the distance. He didn't want to take me too far away from land on my first trip out there. We'd be out for hours, catching nothing but a couple small fish. Not anything good to sell or really anything for a good meal, but we weren't giving up yet. My uncle said that we needed to catch at least one fish big enough to sell to the butcher in town, so we were staying out there until we did that. So we spent a few more hours out on the water, Josh, my brother, realized that we had floated even further away from the beach than we had been. He alerted the rest of us. I started freaking out, crying about how we were going to die or something. I didn't know any better at six years old, all I had known was that my family had gone out to sea without me and my mom a couple times, but they had always came back within a few hours of leaving. We'd been gone for hours and now we'd moved further away by accident. My dad was trying to calm me down, my uncle told him that at that point we might as well go further out. That my mom would understand if we didn't come back until the next day. We went slightly further out, that's when we got caught in this wicked storm it was really horrible. One of the worst storms I've seen out there. So that sent me into more of a panic. At that point my uncle was set on never bringing me back out onto the ocean on his boat, because he hadn't gotten anything done in that day's work. My uncle told me that I'd better be quiet or that he'd throw me overboard. Sure I was upset about the threat of being thrown over, but I wanted in the water. I loved the water. I stayed quiet though. We caught a few fish during the storm, and then tried heading back. Within a few hours, we were docking back at the beach. My mom was there and she told my dad that the new age of when I'd be going out there next was when I was twelve." Trey stated with a smile on his face. I laughed.

"Did you ever get to go back out onto your uncles boat?" I asked.

"Yeah, I finally did. Back when I was thirteen." Trey said nodding. "It was when Josh was in the Games. He needed a new fisher since my dad and other brothers were intent on staying home and watching the Games. I didn't want to watch them, so he took me as a last choice. We sailed out further than we had when I was six, he warned me ahead of time that if I still complained as I did when I was six that he'd make me swim my way back to shore and that I'd have to fight sharks. I smirked and told him 'fine'. I didn't think he was serious, you know? So we got out there, started fishing. Caught a ton of fish. I loved being in the water and setting up nets for the fish, which was my job. I also used Josh's trident to spear fish that I could. It was my first real time using the trident, guess it stuck from there on out. We spent hours out there, even found this one amazing spot where the water was so clear for it to be so far out in the ocean. We spent a while there, I even played with some turtles. There was also a house out on that one part of the beach. It had to be years upon years old, but it appeared to be able to live in. We said we'd go back to that place, but we still haven't done that. I'd love to go back there eventually. Maybe even move into the house that was out there."

"I remember when I was thirteen too, of course I wasn't as happy as you were." I stated, shrugging. His stories sounded great to live through, but I knew that when we were both thirteen while he was out on the ocean living up his life, I was watching my oldest brother die by his brother. I didn't hold it against him anymore though, but still. It sucked to think about. Trey looked over at me like he regretted mentioning that year of the Games. I shrugged again and looked back out toward the ocean.

"I went back to my house while I was gone. Told them that they can stay there as long as they're going to protect my family. They agreed to it, so they're staying there." Trey said, looking back out toward the ocean. I nodded. "I also told them that if it needed to happen to take my family back to 13."  
I looked back over at him. He had willingly gave the rebels permission to take his family to 13, that was a shock to me. I figured that he was always going to end up siding with the Capitol, not the Rebels. "Oh, cool." I simply replied, not sure of how else to reply. Why he had given the Rebel's the permission to take his family with them confused me. Was he planning on running or something? Surely he wouldn't be so stupid to run from the Capitol. They'd find him eventually, no matter where he hid or how long he hid. He'd have to have some sort of miracle to even make it to somewhere that the Capitol wouldn't think to look for a while. I couldn't see him making it to anywhere to hide, and the Capitol would probably get to his family and the rebel's living there before they all could get away. They'd kill them if they couldn't find him.


	16. Chapter 16

After a few more hours of sitting at the beach, we went back to the Victor's village that they had us all in houses in. Trey and I were sharing a house with Dianna, since the Capitol didn't want to put the actual District 4 Victor's out of their houses for us former tributes. Once inside our new house, I quickly picked out a room that fit me perfectly. One window, simple wall paper, simple everything. I didn't want a flashy room, I just needed it to sleep in. The Capitol also provided us with different outfits of clothes to sleep in and peacekeeper outfits for when we were out patrolling with the rest of the force. Carter from the Capitol had ran to the local market and bought food for everyones Victor houses, so we ate some of the food for a quick all made small talk, Dianna talked about her day in the town, Trey talked about the ocean, I mentioned how different it was from District 7 for obvious reasons. After the meal, I headed back upstairs in a daze. I didn't even bother turning on the TV that sat in my room. I laid down as soon as I got into the room and just spent time thinking.

Was Trey going to make a run for it? Was he going to take anyone with him? Would I run if I got the chance? Of course I would. If I knew my family was safe, of course. I couldn't risk my family's lives when they had done nothing wrong. If I ran, it should only be me the Capitol was after. Not all of my family, but I knew they'd go for my family if I ran. Which is why I couldn't run. I'd have to spend my time where the Capitol sent me. Whether I liked it or not. If the rebels won the war, would everything be different? It had to be different in some aspects at least. Or else, why would they be rebelling? To get in control.

I spent the entire night just thinking. Sleep didn't come, I knew it wouldn't. I gave up at some point and instead slipped into a normal outfit and headed for the ocean. Remembering the route to the ocean was easy. I could see why anyone would want to stay here in District 4. The ocean looked awesome no matter what time you went to it. It was darker today though, which I attributed to the lack of sun so far. I looked around the beach and saw that no one else was out on the sand. I looked back toward the road in time to see some of the Capitol workers who came with me to 4 walking by with more of the Peacekeeping Force. I wondered how big the Peacekeepers force was in all of the other Districts, it seemed like they must of shipped in a ton more people to the force here recently. Maybe due to the apparent riots. The ones from the Capitol looked like they'd rather be doing anything but patrolling the streets. Dianna had heard that they were packing in ten to twenty of them per Victor's house. I had just shaken my head and automatically believed that they wouldn't do that to their own people, but what if it was the truth? Then I finally realized what way they were headed they were heading toward the neighborhood that Treys family lived in, where my sister and friends were staying.

I stood up and wiped the sand off of the jeans I had put on. I walked up to the street and hurried down it. I needed to get to Trey's family's house, just to see how everyone there was doing. I broke out into a run once I got down a side street from the peacekeepers. When I finally reached the house, I banged on the door. Clyde answered it after a second.

"You all need to get back to 13 right now. Even Treys family." I said.

"What's wrong?" Clyde asked slowly. He looked as if I had just woken him up, which I didn't doubt. It was still early in the morning, the sun was barely up and not even fully up yet. I figured that most of the District was still asleep. They wouldn't notice a fight going on between peacekeepers and citizens right now, perfect timing to get rid of some of the rebels and citizens.

"Peacekeepers are heading here. You need to get in touch with the rebels and get a hovercraft ready for you all right now." I stated, looking down the street. No peacekeepers had showed up yet but surely they were on their way. Clyde looked like he was awake at that point, he followed my gaze down the street.

"Come in while I get everything set up. You're welcome to come with us to 13." Clyde said. I walked past him and he shut the door after I was in the house. Clyde woke everyone up one by one and they all started packing. He went into the small kitchen and pulled out his Capitol style pocket phone. I sat down on the couch in the living room while he did that. Questions went through my head. What if I overreacted? Should I go with them or not? Of course not. I needed to stay here and act out the act of being with the Capitol. After a few seconds Leah sat down beside me.

"You do realize it's still dark out right?" She asked, smiling over at me. I let out a laugh and nodded. "What were you doing up, kid? Bad dreams? I can't believe you actually came here to tell us that they were heading this way. We should be out of here in ten minutes tops."

"I didn't get any sleep at all last night. I spent half of the night at the beach, Leah. And of course I told you all. For one, you're my sister. Two, I'm not with them. Oh and, I'm not coming with you all. I'm staying here. They'll definitely know somethings up if I'm missing too. They'll take it out on Trey, Dianna, and our family." I replied, looking down at the floor.

"You have to come with us, Seth. You can't just stay with the Capitol! Since when does Trey and fucking Dianna matter that much to you! I can understand about our family, but we can get them to 13 too. Trey and Dianna don't care about you or me, Seth. Get it through your head, they're out here to protect each other. They're probably even together by now. Have you not seen the way they look at each other. I watched them yesterday in the market in the town, they were practically all over each other! Leave them. Come with us." Leah practically begged me. I was shocked that Leah had spent time actually begging me to come with her instead of just telling me that I was coming with her whether I liked it or not. I heard heavier footsteps behind us and turned to find Matt standing there. He walked over and sat down on the other side of Leah.

"What's going on?" He asked quietly. "Idiot here is staying with the Capitol and Dianna and Trey. While the rest of us are heading back to 13." Leah said, looking over at Matt. Matt nodded and stood up.

"Seth, outside." He said walking through the kitchen and out the back door, I followed him. Out back was a lot more private than out front was. I looked over at Matt to find him smirking at me.

"What's up with you?" I ask.

"You're picking to stay here? Really?" Matt asked raising an eyebrow. I still wasn't sure why he was even smirking at the idea of me staying in 4 instead of coming back with them to 13.

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm staying here. I have to, Matt. Just wouldn't be right for me to run too. You all, you need to get out of here. It's not safe here. If you saw all of the peacekeepers heading this way this morning, you'd understand."

"I understand perfectly fine, Seth. I'm not mad that you're wanting to stay here. It's your choice anyway." Matt said, shrugging. I nodded and smiled at him. At least he got it. I didn't want to be here doing the Capitol's dirty work, but I had to. I couldn't risk anyone else's life for me to run, even if some people like Leah couldn't see that.

Clyde walked out back and nodded at us both. I hated that Trey wouldn't get to tell his family goodbye, but I was sure he'd understand why they had to leave so quickly. Maybe he wouldn't, but there was no changing it now.

"We're to be at the hovercraft in ten minutes, Matt. Say your goodbyes and lets get out of here now." Clyde explained. Matt nodded at me and walked inside the house. I was glad that Matt's goodbye was as simple as a head nod, I didn't want to hear how they'd all miss me and how I'd be welcomed at 13 anytime I wanted to head there. A nod was fine with me.

"You're welcomed back in 13 anytime, Seth." Clyde said sticking his hand out. I shook his head and nodded.

"Yeah, I may just show up one day." I stated smirking at him. Clyde nodded and went back inside. I followed him in. I looked around the room, everyone was packing quickly. I walked over to where Leah was standing.

"Oh by the way, where's John Palin?" I asked.

"Working in 13 with some high-tech technology job. He's been in his own room most of the time. Only coming out every so often, but he's still himself. Not like he's some different person with his new job and all of 13 relying on him to put out those ad's onto the TV." Leah said smiling over at me. I nodded and returned the smile.

Within minutes, they were all leaving the house to head to the hovercraft. All goodbyes had been said and everyone was off to go back to 13. There was no more questions asked about whether or not I was going with them. I was off the hook for having to answer why I wasn't going back to 13 with them. I headed back to the Victor Village to tell Trey that they were all leaving. The walk back to the Victor Village was one of the longest walks I've had. There wasn't anyone talking to me on the way and I momentarily stopped by the ocean and tried to figure out how far away they all already were. Surely they were in a different District by now. Hovercrafts just moved that quickly, unless they were going in a round-about way to somewhere. I stood on the beach for a few minutes before going on back. I spent most of the walk thinking about heading to 13 or anywhere away from the Capitol's control. I didn't want to be ran by the Capitol and be told what I do by them. I wanted my own mind, but apparently that wasn't going to be happening anywhere. Unless I ran. Which wasn't an option.

Once I reached the Victor Village, I saw that Dianna and Trey were already awake and outside. They both also looked pissed off, which meant they had to know what I had done. That I had told Treys family to run, that I had assisted the Rebels. Did the Capitol know? They could have. They could've been the ones to tell Trey and Dianna. I walked up into the yard of our current house and looked at them.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Where were you?" Trey asked. "You could've be dead for all we knew."

"Jeez, I didn't know you two were my parents." I stated, shoving past Trey and walking on into the house. I noticed that there was bags packed and sitting around the living room. I walked upstairs and went into the bedroom I'd picked out for myself. It looked empty compared to Treys familys house. There were pictures on the walls in Treys house, there was personality in the furniture. That's what a house should've looked like. Instead we were sitting around in a Victor's Village where the most personality should've been, but the walls were bare. The whole house was bare as far as I was concerned, there was no personality, no matter how much personality the people inside it had. There was nothing in this house that could be compared to some of the houses around District Four.

I sat down on the bed in the room. After a while I stood up and walked over to the small window in the room. I looked out it and saw a new shift of Peacekeepers heading out to patrol the District. I didn't really know anyone in the District, but I knew how annoying Peacekeepers could be. I imagined that having Peacekeepers after you 24/7 while something like a war between the Capitol and the Rebels would be even more annoying than Peacekeepers on a normal day. I sat back down on the bed and turned on the TV that was in the room. I watched as Capitol ad's fought with Rebel ad's for control of the airwaves. It seemed to be a never ending war until the Rebel's started reporting that the tributes who had been in 4 had made it safely to 13 as of ten minutes before they reported it. It seemed like the Capitol didn't want to interrupt the Rebels coverage of the return of the tributes. It confirmed that someone had gotten the tributes out of 4, and I knew they'd go looking for who had warned them.

That's when I heard running up the steps. The running was followed by Trey smashing through my bed room door. He looked nervous and as if he was in a hurry, I hadn't seen him look as nervous even in the arena.

"We got to go. They're heading here, Seth. Hurry. Pack something. I got a friend waiting for us down at the ocean with his boat, we're heading to the place I told you about. Come on." Trey said, throwing stuff into the bags I'd been assigned for my clothes. He had stuffed all of my stuff into bags and then halfway shoved me and my stuff down the stairs.

All in total, we didn't have a lot of stuff. But it seemed to take forever for us to get to the ocean. Trey, Dianna, and I all ran as quick as we could, with all of the stuff we could carry that we needed. Running to the ocean while dodging Peacekeepers was hard, definitely one of the hardest runs I've ever endured in my life. It seemed like it meant something different then the rest of the run's I'd done. As if I stopped I'd be dead instantly. As soon as we were at the ocean, Treys friend helped us load all of our stuff onto his boat. Trey grabbed a flash light from his friend and guided Dianna and I to an under-carriage part of the boat. We were hidden from sight down there, I figured that Treys friend was taking a big risk by hiding us on his boat. I just hoped he was a trust worthy friend and wasn't going to tell the Capitol where we were going.

"It's taking a while to get there!" Treys friend called down to us.

"Okay, just don't give up on us!" Trey replied loudly.

"Never going to happen!" Treys friend yelled, laughing as he did so. Trey looked at Dianna and I. The flash lights battery was strong enough to light up the small space we were in. We had hidden ourselves in the very back of the under-carriage. It was a tight space and we were smashed into each other, but it felt safe.

"We'll be there in a few hours." Trey said quietly. "Benji's going to stay there with us. It wouldn't be safe for him to return now. Surely, the Peacekeepers are waiting on him at the shore just waiting on an explanation for why he left in such a hurry. Plus, he'd be coming back with no catch."

"Is the house secure enough?" Dianna asked.

"Yeah. Benji and I have gotten it locked up the past few years. There's food, beds, even a TV. Benji also told me that he'd gotten a radio type thing from the Rebels. He'll be able to reach other Rebels in different District's on it. Maybe even secure a place for us to go to after we're here for a few days." Trey stated. Dianna and I both nodded.

We were in the boat for a few more hours. Then the boat suddenly came to a stop. The boat floated around for a few minutes and then Benji's head showed up where we were.

"We're here. Be quiet." Benji warned us all. We all quietly sneaked off the boat, leaving most of our stuff on the boat. Benji had secured the boat onto a post on the dock. The house was medium sized and was blocked off from the rest of the District by water and trees. The trees weren't any that District 7 had. I'd recognize any of the trees if there were any in common. They must of all been a water-type of tree, one that simply wouldn't grow in 7. One that wasn't needed. We headed into the house and all sat down in the living room. We just sat there in silence for a few minutes. Everyone seemed scared to make any sort of noise.

"The bedrooms aren't really up to standards, I figured we'd either all sleep out here in the living room on the furniture already out here, or we could drag the beds out here." Benji said. We all nodded. Benji got up and walked into the kitchen, we all followed him. He turned on what appeared to be a small black box with a dial on it, there was a small device attached by a wire also with the machine. At first static greeted us, but then Benji moved the dial around and soon picked up a voice coming through the radio.

_"Most Districts in Rebellion. Peacekeepers even more violent than usual. Not much food. Need help as soon as possible."_ A voice said.

"Dalton? Is that you? District 8?" Benji said into the device attached by the wire. He let go of a button on the side of it and waited.

_"Ben? Yeah. It's me. Any new updates there?"_ The voice, Dalton, replied.

"Trey Woodlee, Dianna Weston, and Seth Slade were all considered the reasons behind why Leah Slade, Mathias Xinlim, and other's were able to get back to 13." Benji replied. "They're all with me here now."

_"Amazing. Do you all need to get here?"_ Dalton replied.

"Maybe in a few days. We got a few days safety right now, I think." Benji replied. "Have you heard from any of the others?"

_"Yeah, I heard from Gabe, Cole, and Jae a few days ago. They're all heading to 13 soon. I figured I'd wait til I heard from you. Plus, I don't want to go alone. Seems like a long journey, too long to take alone. They're taking their radio's with them, that's why I was talking in the first place. Giving them an update of all that I had heard in case they were listening."_ Dalton explained.

"'Course." Benji said, simply. He went silent for a few seconds thinking. "We can head toward 8 soon. Any new Rebel ad's?"

_"No new ad's. Just the same old Leah Slade and Mathias Xinlim dating ad's."_ Dalton replied.

It took a second for what Dalton said to sink in. Matt and Leah? I hadn't even thought that they could ever date, let alone be on ad's about them dating. What was the Rebels thinking? Benji talking snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Okay, Dalton. I'll be back on here tomorrow. Give an update then." Benji said.

_"Alright. Be careful. I'll be here all day. School's cancelled and so is work. Their solution to stop the Rebellion is to cancel our lives. Good luck."_ Dalton said. Then the connection went to static. Benji cut off the radio and looked at us all.

"So, we're heading to District 8?" Trey asked. Benji nodded.

"Yeah, we can trust Dalton. I talked to him a lot while you were in the Games. He's a Rebel, completely. He wants to go to 13, he can't stand the Capitol." Benji explained. Trey nodded. We all went back into the living room and sat down. It was light outside, but I could tell that it had taken hours to get to the house.

The light had to be late afternoon light, even though I still wasn't sure how to tell time by the District 4 sunlight. I had became use to telling the time by 7's light. It became a thing for me to hang out with my friends, Abraham and James, and then have to rush home to get home by dark, so I had learned to tell time by the sun. Of course, I wasn't dead on the time, but I could tell roughly when I needed to head back to the house. I remembered a ton of times that I'd be running late and have to take a short cut. About a week before the Reapings, I had finally learned that using a short cut wasn't the best idea. But by then, I didn't really get to use the way to either of James or Abraham's houses without using the short cut because of the Reapings.

After a while, we threw together a quick meal. The meal really wasn't as good as anything that had been in the Capitol, or even some of the Arena meals, but it was food. It probably would've been better if we had put time into it, instead of just throwing together a few different types of meals from District 10 that we had gotten from the market in town. It was silent at the house, with no town around us. All the noise came from the small conversations we had, which didn't last very long. I stared at the wall before standing up and walking outside. Outside was colder than the rest of the District had been, I supposed it was due to the house being off by itself from the rest of 4. Must of had less sun or something. I walked around the small beach we had out front of the house before climbing onto the boat. I went to the front of the boat and looked around, I didn't see any other boats around us at all. Must of been a hidden house. Maybe it had once had a family living in it but then they all died or something and no one thought anyone else knew about it. There was no telling why no one was searching this place.

I sat down on the front of the boat and watched the waves splash against the shore and the boat itself. There was some sort of bird making a noise in the trees behind the house, I listened to the birds and watched the waves for a long time before walking back inside the small house. Everyone was pulling out material's for bed's for the night. I went into a room and grabbed a few pillows and blankets. Once I got them back to the living room, I piled them onto a couch and laid down.

I was almost freaked out to be going to sleep in the small house without any sort of security watching shift's, but I figured we were safe enough. Why would we need shift's for watching? Staying up to watch out for the rest of us for hours wouldn't even help more than likely. We'd still be killed the Capitol if they showed up.

After a while, sleep finally happened for me. The darkness from outside the small house helped to make me feel safer inside of it, made it feel as if I wouldn't be found by the Capitol. Which wasn't going to happen, if they drove by and saw the boat, they'd know we were there. But still.


	17. Chapter 17

I woke up while it was still dark outside of the house. I slowly and quietly got up and looked around. Everyone else was asleep. I walked into the kitchen and cut on the radio. Static started pouring out from the speaker on the attached machine. After a second I got it connected to a channel that didn't have any static on it.

"Hey. Anyone out there?" I asked into the speaker. I let go of the button on the side and waited.

A few minutes passed but then a reply came. "Yeah. Who is this? Haven't heard you on this channel before." A girl's voice replied.

"Seth Slade. Originally from District 7, currently in District 4." I replied. "The Seth Slade?" "Yeah. Who're you?"

"Aylin Hassan."

"What District are you from?"

"13. I've heard about you from a friend of mine. Mohammad."

"Yeah, I remember Mohammad. He works in the hospital right? He was here in 4 a couple days ago."

"Yeah. He's back here now though."

"Good."

"So, why are you on the radio, Slade? You're sort of a wanted man, aren't you?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am. But, I couldn't take the silence that is around where I'm hiding out at."

"Sort of a risk getting on here, isn't it?"

"I guess so. I'm not sure if I'm being followed or not. I just had to talk to someone. Get some sort of human contact while my friends are all out cold, you know?"

"Yeah, I know what you mean about being lonely. 13 can get boring. I'm not sure how other District's work, but anywhere can get boring can't it?"

"I don't know about the Capitol. But District 7 really got boring at times."

"Figures. I mean, all you guys do is chop down trees."

"Not true, there's stuff for us younger people to do I guess. You just gotta go looking for it yourself. It's not handed to you like entertainment is in the Capi-"

The connected went dead before I got a chance to finish my sentence. I started worrying that the Capitol had found me, so I sat down with the machine onto the floor. I switched off the machine and just sat there on the floor of the small kitchen. I stayed as quiet as possible for a long time.  
After a few hours, Trey finally woke up and walked into the kitchen. He did a double-take at me sitting in the floor.

"What's up with you?" He asked.

"I was on the radio talking with someone from 13, and then the connection went dead. What if the Capitols here?" I asked quietly. He nodded.

"How long ago was that?"  
"A couple hours ago." I replied. Trey started laughing.

"Seth, if the Capitol was here, they'd be inside by now." He said, grinning at me. I nodded. Of course they would be. They wouldn't just be waiting outside for us to step outside, they're not patient enough to just wait. I stood up and nodded again.

Benji woke up next. He walked into the kitchen and filled us in on his plan. He wanted to leave for 8 today. He said that the trip in a boat to somewhere close to 8 would take a few days, and then the hike to the actual District would take a few more days. In total, about a week or two depending on our pace. He explained that it'd be better to go ahead and leave. We all started packing up the food that we had that wouldn't go bad on our trip. Trey said that we could collect more food from different District's at the hiking through District's part of the trip. For the part on the boat, obviously they'd just fish us out some seafood if we needed it. I hoped that the boat trip wouldn't take too long. After we had everything packed, the food, the radio, and the bed stuff, we woke up Dianna. Benji grabbed most of the ice out of the freezer and piled it into a box, he put all of the meat that we had bought in the box with it, saying that we'd eat it all within the first couple all loaded the supplies onto the small boat and then Trey, Dianna, and I went back into the under-carriage. Benji piled most of the supplies in front of us in the small room so that we were completely invisible. That way if the Capitol caught us, Benji could say he was on a long fishing trip from District 4. We all planned on sleeping in the under-carriage as well, figuring it'd be the warmest part on the entire boat.

The first day on the boat couldn't of been worse in my opinion. We hit wave after wave full force, and I thought that we were going to get caught. Trey worked on trying to pick up a signal in the under-carriage with the radio, but no signal would pick up. We attributed that to the fact that we were under a layer of the boat. I just hoped that the radio wasn't broken for good. After a while of being on the ocean we all ate more of the meat we had gotten from the market in the District 4 town square. It'd be gone within a few days before it'd have a chance to go completely bad, which was a good thing since none of us knew how long it'd be until we were near another District town square. Countless tries to get the radio to work failed. We couldn't pick up any sort of signal. Luckily though, Trey revealed that he had stolen a map of all of the Districts and where they were around each other from the Capitol.

After about two days on the ocean, we pulled into dock near another District. If the map Trey had slipped into his stuff was right, then we were about to pull into District 3. From now on the trip would be on foot. Due to the map that Trey had gotten from the Capitol when we were there, we could guess which District's we'd be going through to get to District 8. I was glad that we even had anything with us to help us out, because of the fact that if we had no map, we'd have no way of knowing anything about where we were heading. Leaving the boat with all of our stuff and hoping that we'd be able to find an abandoned building or something to stay in for the night, if we even reached the town square was weird. We were walking through the woods when any of us started talking.

"I wish I didn't have to leave my family's boat." Benji said.

"Could always go back to it now, you don't have to come with us. You could go back to 4, tell them that you were on a fishing trip. Just make sure to actually fish on the way back." Trey offered.

"No. I'm staying with you all. I can't stay there any longer, not with the Capitol's rules and them sending in more Peacekeepers every day." Benji said. Trey nodded, and we continued on walking in silence. By the time of nightfall, we still weren't inside the electric fence marking 3 from the wilderness.

"Should we risk it or keep walking?" Dianna said, looking around at the rest of us. Benji shrugged.

"Let's keep walking for now." Trey said. We took back off walking. I agreed with Trey's choice to continue walking. I'd rather be walking and be attacked by an animal than being asleep and getting attacked since we had no weapons. We really had to hope that the people of District 3 would be nice enough to offer us a place to sleep or something. We weren't planning on spending any time relaxing in 3, or any other District on our way to District 8.

Lesson of the walk to 3 was that walking in the middle of the night had to be one of the worst things possible to do. I kept tripping over weeds and everyone started complaining about being tired after a while. All of the sudden I wished that we were back on the boat where we didn't have to really worry about people, or animals, attacking us.

"Lets just stop for the night!" I called out toward the others who were ahead of me.

"Alright. We should be close enough to just stop for the night." Trey said. We all stopped walking and laid down all of our stuff in a pile. We had a pretty clear area where there wasn't a lot of trees or weeds, so we were able to set camp all together.

"Should we have a shift thing?" Benji asked. Trey shrugged.

"What good will it do us?" Trey replied. After a small meal with the rest of our food, we all laid down and tried to fall asleep. I heard a couple other people snoring after a while. Then I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, the others were already packing up all of the stuff. I figured they were in a rush for some reason, so I hurried to get up and help pack all of our stuff. It was going to be a hard day of walking that was for sure.

"What's the rush?" I asked Dianna.

"Ran out of food supplies. We won't be eating again until we buy more from 3, which will be a couple of hours before we get to the town square to get food since Trey's going to have to get money somehow in order for us to even be able to buy anything." Dianna explained. I nodded.

"Is it safe for Trey to be getting the money for the food since he's recognizable?" I asked her. She shrugged.

"Who knows? As long as he keeps his hood up he should be good. But he may need to let everyone know who he is in order to get money. We'll just have to see, I guess." Dianna replied. "While he's doing that, me, you, and Benji are going to be finding us a place to stay for the day. We're thinking about leaving and traveling during the night, especially for when we're actually in the District's."

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I agree." I said going back to packing. Once we had everything packed back up ready to carry, we headed out.

It took a couple hours to get to 3's electrical fence, but when we finally did, I was glad. I was ready to find a place to stay for the rest of the day and sleep. I was ready to eat some breakfast.

"Well, I guess I'll head out to get some food." Trey said. "Once you all find a place to stay, come find me. At least one of you."

We all nodded. Trey headed out to the town square, while the rest of us walked around for a while. Dianna, Benji, and I headed out around the area's where there were houses. We didn't talk a lot, just focused on finding an empty building. We were walking down a street when I saw an older man who looked like John Palin but in older form. I headed in his direction, when I got close enough, he looked up.

"Are you a Palin?" I asked. He nodded.

"How do you know me?" He asked. He took a second look at me. "You're that Slade boy aren't you?"

"Yes sir. I'm Seth." I replied smiling. He nodded.

"Do you know how my son is?" He asked.

"He's in 13, sir. He's their tech director, he runs the promo's and ad's. Everything from 13 that you see, that's from him." I replied. I looked back at Benji and Dianna. We needed a place to stay. "Mr Palin, I hate to ask, but can we stay here for the night? We'll be heading out more than likely tomorrow. We just need a place to hide."

"Yeah, sure, you can. Come on in." Mr Palin replied. He led us inside the house and down to a room. "Heres where you all can stay. Let us know if you need anything." He walked upstairs.

"I need to go find Trey." Benji said walking toward the stairs. He went upstairs, leaving Dianna and I in the Palin's house by ourselves.


	18. Chapter 18

When Benji and Trey returned, they had a lot of food with them. They laid all of the food down where we piled our stuff in the corner. Trey sat down on the floor next to Dianna, while Benji sat down near me. We all sat there for a few minutes before anyone talked.

"You sure we're safe here?" Trey asked. I nodded.

"The place is owned by John's parents. We're safe." I replied. Benji got up and turned on the small TV that was in the corner. It played Capitol ad's for a while before flicking to anything else. When it did finally change it was a Rebel ad that included most of the former tributes that they had there talking about their time in the arena. After the long ad went off, it showed an older Capitol ad where the Capitol tried to play off Hope and Trey as dating. Trey only laughed and rolled his eyes at the ad. I wondered how well the Rebels were dealing with all of the Capitol ad's they had managed to get out of Trey before he left the Capitol. Most of all I wondered the former tributes reactions. One former tribute especially. I wondered how my sister took the Capitol ad's with Trey in them, with Trey supposedly dating Hope in them. A girl from his own District. I could still remember Leah's rant about how Trey probably never cared about either of us. I'd definitely have to ask her about that all whenever I saw her again.

"Earth to Seth." Benji said. "Dude, I asked if you wanted any food?"

"Yeah, of course I do." I said, grabbing a couple of apples out of the bag that Benji was holding toward me. I took a bite of the first apple I had grabbed. Trey and Dianna seemed to be in a conversation, while Benji was looking toward the TV. I looked at the TV and watched a few more of the countless Capitol ad's. After a while I heard the Palins walking around upstairs. A woman walked down and looked at us all.

"Hi, I'm Ivy, John's mom. Do you all need any food or water?" The woman asked.

"A couple glasses of water would be nice." Benji said. The woman, Ivy, nodded and walked back upstairs. After a few minutes she brought back down four cups of water and handed one to each of us. She walked back upstairs. After a while Benji and Dianna were both asleep, while Trey and I were sitting staring at the TV.

"What type of update are you looking for?" I asked, looking over at him.

"Rebels." He replied simply.

"Why?" I asked, looking back at the TV.

"Just to see if everyones okay. I mean all of the former tributes. Like Matt, John, your sister, everyone else." He said, looking at me before looking back at the TV. I nodded. "Okay." I replied, keeping my eyes on the TV. After a few minutes I looked over at him and grinned. "So, you and Hope?" "Just forget about that. Never even a real thing." Trey replied.  
"Gotta wonder what everyone out there thinks about it. I mean will it come off as fake to like the Rebels or anyone in any District." I stated, smirking at him.

"Of course they all will. Everyone will see right through that horrible acting. I mean damn I didn't even do a good job of acting as if I was dating Hope." Trey said.

"Sure you didn't." I replied. Trey looked over at me briefly before looking back to the TV.

"People will see through that ad." He said nodding at the TV as a Thirteen ad came on the TV. It was the same one that they played earlier with all of the tributes there reliving their time in the arena. I looked down at the floor.

"I'm going to sleep." I informed Trey. He nodded. I laid down on the floor and quickly slipped into the darkness that was becoming my usual dream.

* * *

I woke up to find light shining down the staircase that led upstairs. I looked around the room, Trey was still sound asleep. Dianna and Benji weren't in the room. I sat up and slowly stood up. I wondered how long Trey had stayed up after me. Did he ever get a Rebel ad to let him know that everyone was okay in Thirteen? Maybe so. Or maybe he got nothing other than that one Thirteen ad that had played while I was still awake.

I stood up after a few minutes and walked upstairs. Ivy was standing in the kitchen. She smiled at me, I nodded back at her. It was weird being around another tributes parents aside from my parents and Treys parents.

"Do you want any breakfast?" Ivy asked. I shook my head.

"No thank you. I don't want to waste any of your food." I replied. Ivy shook her head and smiled.

"It'd be no waste. It's only Isaac and I here now. Not exactly a shortage of food in our house, despite current issues out there with the Capitol and Thirteen being at each others throats." Ivy stated. I nodded.

"I'll eat whenever Trey wakes up then." I settled. "Wheres the other two people I came here with?"

"Out back talking over some plans for you all leaving." Ivy replied. "Are you sure you all have to leave so soon?"

"Yeah, we have to leave soon. It'd just be unnecessary trouble for you all if we stayed. Plus we have to get to Eight soon." I explained.

"It'd be no trouble. No one would expect you to hide here. There's probably no one except us even aware that you're in Three." Ivy countered. I shrugged.

"Doesn't matter if they know yet or not. They'll figure it out eventually. There's only so many District's that we could've went to in a boat. They'll figure it out eventually." I said, looking out the back door. I saw Dianna and Benji talking across the yard from where the door was. I looked over at Ivy and nodded before walking outside. I walked over to where they were standing, they looked up as I got closer to them.

"Hey Seth." Benji said, grinning at me when I got up to where they were.

"Hey." I replied. "So, whats the plans?"

"We'll be spending at least another night in Three while we travel. We'll have to get more food before we leave tonight. We're going to keep traveling during the night so that we have a better chance of not getting found. Next we'll be in District Nine. Then Ten. And finally Eight." Dianna explained. I nodded, looking down at the map of the Districts that Benji and Dianna had laying between them.

"How are we going to keep getting food?" I asked after a second. Benji shrugged.

"Same way as we did yesterday. Trey'll sneak into town, get some money, and some food." Benji said. I nodded. Of course that was the plan, get food any way we could. Which the only way it seemed possible to get would be to send Trey into the town square and hoping that no Peacekeepers recognized him or the rest of us.

"Alright." I replied, looking toward the house. I didn't like the risk we were taking with sending Trey into town. Especially just to get to District Eight to find Dalton, a guy who Benji knew from his Rebel radio which could just be a trap to turn us in to the Peacekeepers. Ivy walked out and looked at us all.

"You all come on in and get some breakfast, I think I just heard Trey awake down in the basement, so come on in." Ivy called to us. Benji folded up the map and slid it into his pocket. We walked back into the house, I could hear the TV onto a new show from what it was down in the basement.

"I'm going to go get Trey." I said, walking down the stairs. When I got downstairs I saw him sitting on the floor watching a District Thirteen interview, the camera was on the interviewer when I first walked down so I sat down next to him. When the camera moved, I was shocked to see Matt and Leah sitting in two chairs right next to each other for the interview.

"Matt, Leah, welcome to this interview. Glad to have you both here when there's so many events going on around the Districts and around here even." The interview said, smiling at them both. Matt nodded and smiled.

"Thanks for having us here, Craton." Matt said. I looked over at Trey, he was just looking at the screen. I tried to find out what he was looking so intently at. Which is when I noticed the fact that Matt and Leah were holding hands.

"So, you both were some of the favorite tributes in the Hunger Games this year. District One and District Seven." Craton, the interviewer, stated. Leah nodded.

"Yeah. Craton, settle this argument between us, who do you think would've won the Games if they hadn't of ended?" Leah asked, grinning. Craton looked back and forth between them both.

"Hm, sword versus ax. I'm not sure. If I have to bet though, I'd say you Leah. No offense Matt." Craton replied. Leah looked over at Matt as if the answer Craton gave them had been obvious. Matt looked as if he wanted to object to the ending that Craton bet.

"But I'm much more powerful. I'm 6ft4, Craton. I could've taken out half of the tributes on my own." Matt said, laughing.

"Wouldn't of been able to take out an ax flying at you." Leah replied, smirking at Matt. Matt smiled back at her and shook her head.

"So, I'm taking from the way you're acting with each other, that the rumors around here are true?" Craton asked. "Are you two really together?"

"Well, I guess since there's so many stories about us being together, it'd be alright to confirm it." Matt said. Leah nodded. Craton looked as if he had just heard the best news in the entire country of Panem.

"When did this start originally?" Craton asked, smiling at them both still.

"Back in the Arena. Not officially until we were out, but I guess it really started back in the Arena." Leah explained. I shook my head at the screen, trying to get use to the info of my sister dating Matt.

"Trey! Seth! Come on!" Dianna called from upstairs. I looked over at Trey as he stood up and cut off the TV quickly. Trey walked up the stairs before I even got the chance to ask him what he thought of the Rebel interview. I followed him up the stairs.

"We're leaving soon." Trey said to everyone. "That way we can get to every District we're passing through quicker and then get to Thirteen. I don't think we should even stop at Eight for Dalton."

"But I told Dalton we'd come for him." Benji objected, looking between Trey and I.

"Well, fix the radio and get in touch with him. Tell him to meet us in Nine, Ten, or somewhere else. Walking to meet us in the middle is the least he can do. Plus if we don't have to go all of the way to Eight, then we don't have to go that much further to get to Thirteen." Trey replied, sitting down at the table. I leaned against the kitchen counter. The rest of the meal went by in silence, none of us questioning Trey on his sudden change of opinion. Benji finished first and went downstairs to work on the radio to try to get in touch with Dalton.

"I'm going back into town." Trey said standing up as soon as he was done. Dianna looked up at him.

"I'll go with you." She offered. I looked up from my plate of food at them both.

Trey shook his head. "Stay here. I'll be back in about an hour or two. I just want to pick up some last minute food supplies that won't ruin on our trip to get to Nine." He walked out of the kitchen and outside of the house.

Dianna, Ivy, and I sat downstairs watching for other Rebel ad's or interviews, I knew Ivy wanted to see John featured in at least one interview. We would've stayed upstairs if it hadn't been for the fear in all of us that Peacekeepers would come to the house and accuse us of being Rebels since we were watching their ad's and not the Capitol's ad's. Every once in a while, they'd show an ad that included every Rebel tribute - but it wouldn't really give us any news about how everyone was at this very moment. Had the interview this morning been live or prerecorded? I wasn't sure. Benji was in a different room in the basement working on the radio, every once in a while I'd hear him talking, but no replies came. After a while he came running out of the room, grinning.

"I got it to work! We can pick up radio channels now!" Benji stated. Dianna and I both stood up and followed him back into the room he had the radio set up in. He grabbed the mic part of the radio and clicked it on. "Dalton? You out there?" He asked before letting going of the button on the mic. A few minutes went by with nothing but static coming out of the radio speakers.

Then a voice I remembered from the first time I saw the radio started talking. "Benji? Is that really you?"

"Dalton? Hey. Yeah it's me. I'm here with Seth and Dianna." Benji stated. "Look, we need to know, can you walk out of Eight and maybe to Nine or Ten? It'd cut down on time."

"Ugh, sure I guess I can. Where do you want me to walk to?" Dalton asked. Benji pulled out the map of the Districts and looked at it for a moment.

"The boarder between Nine and Ten." He said into the mic after deciding.

"Alright. I'll start packing and head out soon." Dalton said. "See you guys." The radio channel turned to static only.

"Where are you all heading to?" Ivy asked from the other room.

"Boarder of Nine and Ten." I replied, looking in the room. Ivy pointed at the TV.

"It's a live broadcast from Two." She explained. Dianna, Benji, and I walked back into the room and looked at the TV. Once again on the TV was Craton, but this time he had more guests than just Matt and Leah. He also had John with him now.

"We're here in District Two, bringing you live coverage of a Rebel attempt to calm down all of the fighting here." Craton said loudly into his mic. "I have Mathias Xinlim, Leah Slade, and John Palin here with me. Guys, I have to ask, how long do you think we'll be here?"

"As long as Thirteen sees fit?" John replied.

"Honestly, Craton, we don't know how long we'll be here. We're guessing a few days, but honestly we're going to be here until the fighting dies down - which is what all of us Rebels from Thirteen want." Matt stated, looking at the camera. Benji exited the room and went back into his room with the radio. I heard him turning it back on to the channel where we had talked to Dalton.

"Change of plans! Meet us in Two!" He was calling into the mic. I hoped that Dalton hadn't turned his radio completely off and that he had heard our new directions. Benji walked back into the room as the broadcast from Two went dead.

"I'm going to find Trey, as soon as we get back we'll leave." Benji said, hurrying up the stairs to the first floor. I looked over at Dianna and she shrugged. We both sat back down and watched ad after ad, sometimes Capitol, sometimes Rebel until Benji and Trey walked in.

"Get packed." Trey said, walking over to where our bags were and placing another bag of food with them. He looked at us all and Benji headed into the other room and tried the radio again. We moved the bags over to the bottom of the stairs and waited while Benji tried to get in touch with Dalton. After he finally did get in touch with Dalton again and told him our new meeting place, he brought the radio out of the room and sat it down on one of the bags.

"Tell John that we miss him." Ivy said, standing up. "And please, feel free to come back here to stay if you ever need to again."

"Thanks for letting us stay here." Trey replied, nodding. I nodded too.

"We'll definitely tell John that." I said, smiling. Ivy returned the smile and led us upstairs. She insisted on giving us a few blankets so that we would have something else to sleep on, if we wanted to. We rearranged all of our stuff and headed out for District Two.

* * *

It was hard navigating our way through Three in order to get to Nine. We wanted to get into Nine by the end of the night - which was harder than we had hoped it'd be. We stopped a couple of times to eat and then headed back out walking. I was glad that no one stopped us to ask where we were going or why we had so many bags with us, everyone just tended to ignore us. We were going to stop when it got dark, but decided that it'd be better to just keep walking for as long as we could, to try to find some sort of shelter for us to stay in. It was completely pitch black by the time we got to another empty building. It looked like it use to be a factory of some sort, but the windows were busted out and it was completely empty. We threw down a couple of blankets and laid down.

Trey and Benji took the first shift of watching for people while Dianna and I slept. When Trey woke me up for my shift, I didn't really want to get up at all, but I figured that my shift would only last a few hours then we'd be walking again. Dianna handed me a bag of food as soon as I sat up. I picked through it and chose another apple for my food. I ate the apple in silence, looking around the empty building. I wished we were going through Seven, since I knew it better than any other District. It became daylight about an hour after I took over watch shift. I grabbed another apple to eat while we waited for Trey and Benji to wake up.

"If they don't get up soon, I think we should wake them up." Dianna said. I nodded.

"Yeah, I want to get to Nine today and possibly get to Two by latest tomorrow." I replied. Dianna nodded and looked over at Trey and Benji. We waited about an hour before finally waking Trey and Benji up. We all ate some breakfast, bananas and bread, and we folded the blankets back up and placed them into the bags.

"We ready to go?" Trey asked. I nodded and so did Dianna.

"I'd say so, Trey." Benji replied, grinning. We walked out of the old factory and headed in the direction we had been heading in.


	19. Chapter 19

We finally made it into Nine after a few more hours of walking. We stopped for a while to eat lunch once we crossed into Nine. We all decided to go into town in Nine, since a ton of people were heading that way. We didn't want to stick out by three of us standing around waiting in an empty part of the District. Not a lot of people looked at us, but a couple of the ones who did looked like they wanted to say something. Finding our way into town wasn't hard to do, especially not with the stream of people heading that way. When we got into town, we walked into a small store. There was around twenty people in the store and they all seemed to be huddled around a TV in the corner. Trey walked over to where they were standing.

"What's going on?" He asked, looking around at the people. One older man turned to look at him.

"Haven't you heard? There's been riots and fights breaking out in some Districts. Two, Four, Seven, Twelve, and Five were all already in wars pretty much. Today Three broke out in riots about an hour ago." The man said to Trey. Trey nodded and walked back over to Dianna, Benji, and I.

"My home District's in Rebellion. Now John's is too. And so is your's, Seth. We were just there." Trey said, looking around at us. I nodded and looked around the store. Everyone seemed to be looking at the TV except for a guy who looked maybe a year younger than Trey and I. He had blonde hair and was staring over at us from the other side of the store. I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't figure out from where. Dianna looked from me to where I was looking at before looking back at Trey and I.

"Recognize him?" Dianna asked quietly. After getting shakes of our heads from both of us, she continued. "He was in the Games with us. If I remember right he was from District Ten and his name was Evan something."

I nodded. "What's he doing here?" I asked. Dianna shrugged.

"I don't know. Maybe he's trying to blend in like us." She replied.

"Lets get out of here, we can come back for a reunion later." Trey said, looking back at the door. Trey walked out of the store and the rest of us followed him. We walked for a while longer, trying to find a place to hang out for a while at. Nine didn't have a ton of places that were just empty for us to stay in. The only thing we had going for us was that it was the Grain District. If we could find a nice Grain field to sit down in, we might be good for a few hours without anyone finding us. We turned down a road and kept walking.

"Hey! Wait up!" A voice yelled from behind us. We turned around to see who it was. None of us really stopped walking completely though, just sort of inched backwards while looking at our newest company. It was the kid from the store who had been in the Games with us according to Dianna. He walked toward us more.

"Seth Slade, Trey Woodlee, and Dianna Weston, right? I'm Evan." He asked, looking at all three of us. He didn't even really acknowledge Benji. I nodded at my name, and Trey looked over at me with a look that told me he'd rather not tell this kid who we are, even if he was in the Games with us. "Look, I know we didn't say two words to each other while in the Capitol. But I know stuff that's going on in Two, I've kept in touch with the Rebels. In fact they only sent me here so I could try to quiet down riots here. I only got here a couple days ago." Evan continued, with a shrug.

"Why haven't they showed you as much as the others in ad's? You're in what? Two?" Trey asked, looking at the guy. Evan shrugged and then nodded.

"Yeah, I'm not in a lot but that's because I'm not as necessary to the Rebellion as other people, such as Matt, Leah, you guys, and everyone else pretty much." Evan said, shrugging again. Trey laughed slightly and then shook his head.

"Whatever. So, what do you want from us? Why'd you follow us?" Trey asked.

Evan laughed. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe a way out of here that doesn't include me being alone. Plus you all look kind of lost, coming through Nine like this." He replied, shaking his head.

"What else are we suppose to do? We're going to Two." Trey said, looking at Dianna, Benji, and I. "You guys go on and find some field for us to stay in for a while." Dianna nodded and Benji turned to walk on down the street. I wasn't as intent on leaving right away. I wasn't sure about leaving Trey and Evan alone since they didn't seem to get along at all. Dianna and Benji started to walk down the street, while Trey, Evan, and I stood there looking at each other. Evan stepped closer to us again and Trey stiffened even more.

"I know what's going through the Rebels minds. I know their plan. I can help you all get there and get past the Army that President Clyde has set up for anyone who tries to get near them." Evan said, calmly. Trey shrugged.

"They'll recognize us." Trey replied, looking as if he could care less about some Army. Then I recognized who Evan had called President.

"Clyde? Clyde's President of Thirteen?" I asked, shocked that the guy who I had met while in Thirteen - who had been on one of the Hovercrafts saving us from the Arena - had been the President of Thirteen.

"He's the President of the entire Rebellion. If - when - the Rebellion wins, he'll become President of Panem." Evan replied, smiling. "I assume you met him?"

"Yeah, I did meet him." I replied. Trey looked between Evan and I, he apparently hadn't heard about Clyde or any of the people behind the Rebellion. "Clydes this dude who was even in the Hovercrafts that saved some of us from the Arena. He was nice back in Thirteen when I met him."

Trey nodded. "Yeah, sure. Cool." He replied, looking behind us in the direction that Dianna and Benji went. "Look, Evan, you can come with us. At least so you can fill us in, but after that you got to at least pay your way with us. Which means bring your own food. Us four set out together, we weren't set on picking up people from every District we went through to take with us. Hell, the only person we intended to meet up with was this guy in Eight who is now meeting us in Two."

Evan nodded and smiled. "Don't worry about food. Like I said, I'm part of the Rebellion. I can get us food. Then we'll be in Two in a few days or a week." He said after a few seconds.

"It'll only take a day or two." Trey replied, sticking to his plan of how long our trip to Two should take. Evan shook his head.

"Not with the current Army situations. I mean Peacekeepers and Thirteen soldiers are on the lookout for people being anywhere they shouldn't be." He told us both. "It's getting bad around here with everyone being so annoyed with either the Capitol or Thirteen. Most everyones picked a side. Although some people haven't, but most of them have been executed for being though of as being a Rebel by the Peacekeepers. It's been bad around Nine, Ten, and some other Districts. Which District have you all just came from?"

"Three." I replied. Trey glanced over at me. Evan nodded.

"Three's gotten off good from what I've heard. Maybe a few jobs going downhill, but other than that. I haven't heard of anyone being shot and killed in front of the rest of their District." Evan said, bitterly. He glared down at the ground for a few minutes before shaking his head and looking up at us.

"Let's go find your friends, eat a meal, and then head on to Two. I'm tired of being out here in Nine, on my own."

Trey nodded and started walking down the street. I followed him and Evan started walking beside me. We reached an intersection when we saw Dianna and Benji ahead of us a little, watching us. They waited until we got to them to do anything besides watch us walk toward them. Dianna smiled at all three of us.

"There's a field a little ahead of us, it looked empty." She explained. Evan nodded.

"Yeah, most of the fields will be empty right around now. Everyone will be in town, trying to get food right about now. Trying not to get killed by the Peacekeepers." Evan commented, looking at Dianna. Benji nodded slowly and looked back behind them.

"So, should we head on in? Find a nice place to hide and wait for everyone to go to bed tonight?" Benji offered. Trey nodded and slowly so did Evan.

"I guess we could hide out that long. It's sometimes safe to do that here, but I swear if we get caught by the Peacekeepers I'm going to kill you all if we get out of there alive." Evan replied, looking between us all. Trey laughed after a minute. We all started walking in the direction that Dianna and Benji led us in. After a few minutes we came to a field. We found a place to sit for a while and eat some apples before taking off walking again. Evan was pretty easy to get along with after a few hours of us walking together. He ended up trying to explain what had gone on in Thirteen recently.

"They're preparing for a war that they know is coming." He stated. "Even sending some of the former Tributes into training. I was in training until I came here. Training goes on every day whether it's raining or not, outside which is definitely different for Thirteen."

"Why?" Benji asked, looking back at Evan.

"The Rebels don't like to come up from underground. They fear that the Capitol will try to attack them if they do." Evan replied, shrugging. After his short speech about what had been going on in training, the rest of the day was silent while we walked. We spent that night in another field, full of some grain plants or something. I once again wished that we were in District Seven instead of Nine. I'd know my way around Seven better, for obvious reasons. And I wouldn't feel so out of place in a grain field. If we were in Seven, I'd be able to tell all of the rest of the people in our small group which trees were what and where we could hide at for breaks. Within a few days we were running low on our supplies of food and we were, hopefully, getting closer to Two. Evan and Trey had gotten into a few disagreements on our trip through Nine. Mainly about when we were going to get more food and if we'd need more before we got to Two. Trey thought it'd be smarter to stop and get more food, Evan thought we'd be fine. I was starting to think that bringing Evan along had been a mistake, but there wasn't any going back now - unfortunately. When we stopped for a break, Evan placed himself directly between Trey and I when we all sat down.

"So, I forgot to ask. How was the Capitol after the Arena?" Evan asked, a sarcastic tone to his voice. He smirked at both of us when we didn't answer right away. "Oh come on, I told you what was going on with some of the Rebels, you tell me what went on in the Capitol."

"One of the other Tributes was drugged." I replied after a minute, deciding to only share that information.

"Oh come on. Nothing else? Whatever then." Evan said, shrugging and looking down at the ground as he ate an apple.

After we all finished the last of the food we had brought with us, we started walking again. I started to hate walking after a couple hours without any food at all with us. We were lucky to even be able to find small lakes to get water out of on our way this far. We had just found another lake when we reached District Nine's electric fence. We managed to find a break in the fence and slid out under it. Once we were out of the District, the walk became easier. There wasn't as many fields full of grains and there was more trees and it was generally covered well compared to the District itself. We all tried to speed up our walking to get to Two, knowing that we wouldn't get to eat any more - unless we wanted to find our own food - managed to get us all to go a little quicker. Within a few hours, we were at another fence.

"This is Two." Trey mumbled, walking along the fence line trying to find a way in. He walked back after a few minutes and nodded before jerking a thumb back in the direction he had just came from. We all followed him down the fence line until we saw a part where the fence was up high enough from the ground for us to possibly sneak in under. We all took turns going under the fence until we were all in District Two. From then it was easy to find our way into town. Once we got into the town square, I noticed something that was different from the other District's I've been in, there wasn't as many Peacekeepers around the town square. Instead there was more guards with guns but they weren't in Peacekeeper uniforms. Evan walked over to one of them and smiled.

"Taro? He asked, grinning at the guy. The guy smiled back and nodded in a direction. Evan walked off in the direction and the rest of us followed him. He walked straight to another guard who took off his hat as soon as he saw Evan coming.

"Hey Evan!" The guy yelled.

"Hey Taro!" Evan replied, grinning. He looked back at us and waved us forward. "This is Trey Woodlee, Seth Slade, Dianna Weston, and their friend."

"Benji." Benji mumbled when Evan failed to even remember his name. The Guy, Taro, nodded at us all and smiled.

"I believe your sister, Mathias, John, and everyone else are over here somewhere. Let me show you to them." Taro said, walking off. We all followed him into a makeshift building. Inside the building sat Leah, Matt, and John. They all looked up as soon as we walked into the place.

"John, before anything else is said. We met your parents. They said that they missed you." I blurted out. John's expression was hard to read, but I'm pretty sure that he was shocked that we had met his parents. He looked down at the floor and nodded. Next thing I knew, Leah was hugging me - surprisingly - for a few seconds before letting me go. Then Matt shook my hand as if a hug was a little too much for him. I went to hug John and when I did, I felt something cold like metal press into my stomach.

"I'm sorry. They're threatening my parents' lives." He whispered into my ear. Within the next second, a blast went off and I was on the ground. I knew what happened a second after it happened, I had been shot and John had done it. A couple more blasts from the gun went off before silence took over the room. Benji pressed something onto my stomach and was mouthing something at me that I couldn't hear. After a second, everything went black.


End file.
